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This "journalist" puts 1 single Chinese company under a microscope and incites people of first world nations to pick up their pitch forks and torches in protest

by deelowe 14y ago

This "journalist" puts 1 single Chinese company under a microscope and incites people of first world nations to pick up their pitch forks and torches in protest. Sure the conditions at Foxconn are terrible in comparison to my world view, but I'm not Chinese and my world view is irrelevant here. You know how I know this article is trash? This statement right here: "It also appears that windows have had bars put over them in an attempt to cut down on suicides." The suicide thing was covered pretty well recently and my recollection was that the workers of Foxconn were threatening suicide in a round about way of collective bargaining. Foxconn handled the situation very poorly and it's been a huge fiasco ever since. My understanding from the follow-up articles I read is that there is nothing abnormal about actual suicide rates at Foxconn when compared to any other company. Let's be real here. What matters is how Foxconn compares to other Chinese factories. For all I know, Foxconn could be providing better pay, better living conditions, and better benefits than every other Chinese company. However, since there's nothing in this article to give me a better perspective, I have no way of knowing. There's no reason to expect Foxconn to act any differently than any other Chinese company. The issue here is the Chinese government and their lack of concern for fair and equal treatment of workers. Don't blame Foxconn simply because they make Apple products when they are doing the same thing as every other Chinese company. Also, what's with this fixation on Foxconn and Apple? Foxconn does a whole hell of a lot more than just assembling ipads and iphones. I'm sure Apple accounts for but a small fraction of their total revenue.

varelse 14y ago
Apple is the market leader. Therefore they're a lightning rod for this sort of criticism. Stated without proof but I'd be surprised if conditions building any other device over there anywhere else are any better... As others have said, if you truly don't approve of these practices, then stop buying the end products of them...
jonknee 14y ago
You're not Chinese, but the "journalist" as you say is. This wasn't a Western hit piece.
- knwang 14y ago
  just want to point out that merely "being Chinese" does not make the journalist as qualified as you may think. Think it like some journalist in NYC working for a major media company goes to some manufacturing plant in the Midwest, finding people are doing hard work under not good enough conditions. And that'll give some perspectives.
  - jonknee 14y ago
    The OP made a big deal about how it's different in China so we can't compare directly. My point is that this is a Chinese national who lives in China and has actually worked at the plant. Regardless of journalistic pedigree, the writer is vastly more capable of writing an honest story from the Chinese perspective than a Western journalist or the OP. A NY Times reporter covering poor working conditions in a meat packing plant in the Midwest is also a story worth reading. It happens, sometimes it changes when it's exposed, but almost never changes without exposure. An American reporting on bad American working conditions is more impactful than a Chinese reporter reporting on poor American conditions and the reverse is also true. Upton Sinclair was able to change things with his work on The Jungle. I don't see this as being a lot different.
    - knwang 14y ago
      >> My point is that this is a Chinese national who lives in China and has actually worked at the plant. Regardless of journalistic pedigree, the writer is vastly more capable of writing an honest story from the Chinese perspective than a Western journalist or the OP. I actually agree. What I wanted to point out is for the reader of the story to keep in mind that the writer is a white collar Shanghai journalist, and would inevitably come with his frame of references because of it. For a NYT journalist living in NY, I believe most Western readers will assume a liberal bias, and view the reporting through some lenses, but the sophistication towards China probably stops at the reporter being a "Chinese Journalist". Sure, the writer is more qualified than you and me, but he didn't answer some critical questions - is this factory above or below average in Chinese manufacturing plants? Is Foxconn raising or lowering labor standards in the area? Is Foxconn providing better alternatives to local labor, who may have to make a living by going down a tunnel in a coal mine or planting rice under the sun? Is having the plant there better or worth than not having the plant there?
mcantelon 14y ago
>This "journalist" puts 1 single Chinese company under a microscope and incites people of first world nations to pick up their pitch forks and torches in protest. Sure the conditions at Foxconn are terrible in comparison to my world view, but I'm not Chinese and my world view is irrelevant here. Did you actually read the article? A Chinese journalist reporting in Chinese media would indicate that Foxconn's conditions are a concern to the Chinese "world view". Apple is the most profitable company in the world, yet they continue to choose a manufacturing partner that treats workers poorly.
- deelowe 14y ago
  I did and I didn't see anything that provided comparison with conditions in other Chinese factories. I have no way to know what's typical and what's not.
  - zenocon 14y ago
    > However, the Chinese new agency Shanghai Evening Post has posted a pretty scathing review of the working conditions at Foxconn, and in particular the iPhone 5 production line. It doesn't make a lot of sense for Chinese media to do a hit piece for Chinese readers if the working conditions are the norm.
    - PakG1 14y ago
      It does make sense when Apple is involved and is a foreign company that makes oodles of cash. It then becomes a very political thing. Plus, normal factories are nowhere near Foxconn's scale, so they're usually not worth reporting on, unless you're doing an industry-wide report. Foxconn has captured the world's attention. The industry has not. What is flashy is what sells, always has.
adaml_623 14y ago
The person writing the article is trying to change the working conditions in that factory (also in other factories). They are doing this by finding out the conditions and pointing them out at an opportune moment in time. They are trying to get Apple to put pressure on Foxconn. It's irrelevant if Foxconn is twice as good as other companies. Sounds like they could be 3 times as good and still need improvement. HN is full of stories about how to get your startup into the media and about startups wanting to change the world. This person is trying to use media coverage of the iPhone 5 to help people directly. Good on them.
- aes256 14y ago
  > This person is trying to use media coverage of the iPhone 5 to help people directly. Good on them. Is it really helping them, though? Improving working conditions and the wellbeing of employees costs money. Put pressure on Apple/Foxconn to spend more on labor in China and there'll come a point where they just move production elsewhere, leaving these Chinese people without any jobs. Let's not forget these people are working in these factories voluntarily. The working conditions might be a bit crap, but the employees are choosing to endure them at their current wage.
  - pm90 14y ago
    >Let's not forget these people are working in these factories voluntarily. The working conditions might be a bit crap, but the employees are choosing to endure them at their current wage. Because they have no choice. The alternative is starving. You have to understand that spreading awareness is the first step in actually solving this problem. That's how working conditions improved in the west, and that is how they'll improve in China.
HorizonXP 14y ago
So wait: because these workers are Chinese, and their working conditions are better than other Chinese factories, they shouldn't be demanding better conditions? Got it. So because people lost the genetic lottery and were born in China, they're lesser than you, and don't deserve the same rights and privileges that you do. I'd like to see you try and work in these conditions and then try to have the same opinion. This Western attitude of shitting on "3rd-world" countries just appals me. As the child of immigrant parents in Canada, I'm absolutely grateful that I was able to escape this world. But I'm sure you'd love to send us back.
- bmohlenhoff 14y ago
  Whoa now, ad hominem much? Let's keep the mudslinging to a minimum, please. The point he's (admittedly somewhat poorly) attempting to make is that the article doesn't have enough context to draw conclusions about the greater state of factory workers across the entire Chinese industrial base. He never states that the workers shouldn't demand better working conditions, and never says that Foxconn offers a better work environment than other factories.
- philwelch 14y ago
  It's interesting how middle-class people in the first world elevate their own decadence to the level of a human right. For most of human history, people have had to work very very hard and endure massive absolute poverty. Even today, somebody has to go pick fruit all day and even unemployed Americans aren't willing to: http://seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2016582976_danny23.html http://seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2016582976_danny2...
Vivtek 14y ago
what's with this fixation on Foxconn and Apple? Apple is the most successful business in history. They have literally billions of dollars in the bank. The fact that they have reached this position by exploiting international labor conditions is dissonant with the glowing opinion of them in the American press. It is seen as hypocritical. From your tone, I infer that you think you may agree - but that you feel conflict, and conceal that from yourself by lashing out at the messenger. It is not a valid excuse to say they're Chinese, any more than it is valid to allow West Virginian mine workers to die of black lung to provide cheap heat for Philadelphia. Injustice doesn't have to be in your own street for it to be injustice.
- aimatt 14y ago
  I think he is trying to say that what this journalist is getting paid could be better or worse than other factories, but there's no way to tell reading this article. The author expects the reader to compare it to dollars as stated with the $4 wage. How many Yuan is that, and how many Yuan is a good living over there? I have a friend living in Shenzhen and he gets by on like $0.25 a day, living like a westerner. And of course you are going to get reprimanded if you don't do your job correctly, e.g. too much oil or inaccurate placement. And of course a new employee won't be good at it at first. Personally, the most atrocious thing I've read in the whole article is that dirty sheets is commonplace. And frankly, that is common in China.
  - fastball 14y ago
    Right, and Vivtek's point was that it doesn't matter if Foxconn has better working conditions than other factories in China. Lesser of two evils is still an evil. deelowe seems to have the "if someone's gonna do it, it might as well be us" mentality; as if it was morally ok to exploit labour in China just because China does that to itself. What we should be looking at is the Purchasing Power Parity. If the Chinese factory workers can afford much less than American factory workers, we should try to make it more fair.
  - OriginalSyn 14y ago
    I was in China for a month, there's no way you can get away "living like a westerner" on $0.25 USD/day maybe living like a poor Chinese peasant. But just taking a bus somewhere costs around 15 cents.
bkmartin 14y ago
Your statement is like looking at steel mill conditions in the early 1900's in Pittsburgh and the people on wall street saying... "Well, why are they pissed? Its not like its slavery." Just because other Chinese working conditions suck doesn't mean that its right. Yeah, so maybe the pay isn't as high because the cost of living is lower, but that doesn't mean you treat people like crap when they are making you filthy rich just because "everbody does it".
- deelowe 14y ago
  No, it's like looking at a steel mill in the 1900's and pointing the finger at our government to do something about it. Which we did and it got fixed. Resolution didn't come from journalists going around bashing all the companies that purchased US steel. Resolution came from the government enacting better labor laws. Also, it wasn't just steel. It was steel, oil, coal and many other industries. Which, I'd argue is the same issue in China.
  - pm90 14y ago
    The situations are similar not same Unfortunately, the Chinese govt. is not the same as the US govt., w.r.t how it treats its own people. So appealing to their govt. will not work. Appealing to Apple might?
SeanDav 14y ago
and what is/was wrong with slavery, after all every one was doing it and probably slaves on plantations had better living conditions than the people they came from living in the bush... Don't blame the poor plantation owners, they are just doing the same thing as all the others.... Sheesh, until now I never realized it was possible to have your head so far up your ass it ended up buried in the sand...
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  The fix for slavery was to ban it across the country. Individual plantation owners couldn't voluntarily give it up if it made them uncompetitive against those who didn't.
- error54 14y ago
  > and what is/was wrong with slavery Seriously?
  - SeanDav 14y ago
    Wow, some people REALLY don't get irony. My whole post was aimed at the parent post by emphasizing the ridiculousness of his argument by use of irony/sarcasm. From the wikipedia definition of irony: "Ironic statements (verbal irony)[2] are statements that imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning."
    - error54 14y ago
      Unfortunately, the world is still in such a sad state that your above comment could absolutely be construed as your own personal beliefs which is why I asked if you were serious lest I overreact and turn what would be an otherwise lively debate into uncouth name calling. But thank you for the definition of the word irony. I wish you a good day.
      - SeanDav 14y ago
        Sorry about my somewhat harsh reply. I come from the UK where irony/sarcasm use is far more common than it appears to be by our cousins in USA. I sometimes forget this and really should use more neutral arguments!
nickik 14y ago
> . There's no reason to expect Foxconn to act any differently than any other Chinese company. The issue here is the Chinese government and their lack of concern for fair and equal treatment of workers. I would say you are wrong partially wrong here, at least in the long term. We did not have good condition 50 or 100 years ago, the conditions in china are better then they where 30 years ago too. The richers a society the better there places of work will become.
wordsthatendinq 14y ago
Unfortunately, I believe the OP misrepresents the original article quite a bit. The Chinese article is three pages long but their summary only covers details from the first page. The second page features personal stories from several employees and their families, which the journalist said made a much deeper impression than the tasks he went through as an undercover employee. The third is a commentary along the lines of "is this the best China can do?" (i.e. forever be implementing other countries' creativity, instead of being the inventors), and a final reflection saying that working conditions at Foxconn have improved greatly over the last two years (apparently working undercover at Foxconn is something that's been done several times before), but the hostile attitude toward employees has not improved. Aside the editorial content at the end, I think the article was quite fair in that the journalist simply reporte what he saw (if the windows really have screens installed for suicide prevention, merely describing this fact does not make an article "trash"). I also don't think the author has any intent of making the Western world go up in arms about anything. The point is more about checking how much things have changed since the famous chain of suicides was made public.
anonymous 14y ago
"Let's be real here." OK, go work in the Foxconn factory and then let's see how you feel about Apple. That's about as "real" as it gets. I wonder if you would actually be more upset with the conditions than the local workers are. Who knows, they might be quite happy with what they're getting. But how would _you_ feel working there? Your world view _is_ relevant here because you are the source of Apple's reputation and their income. You are the primary market.

by deelowe 14y ago

varelse 14y ago

Apple is the market leader. Therefore they're a lightning rod for this sort of criticism. Stated without proof but I'd be surprised if conditions building any other device over there anywhere else are any better... As others have said, if you truly don't approve of these practices, then stop buying the end products of them...

jonknee 14y ago

You're not Chinese, but the "journalist" as you say is. This wasn't a Western hit piece.

knwang 14y ago
just want to point out that merely "being Chinese" does not make the journalist as qualified as you may think. Think it like some journalist in NYC working for a major media company goes to some manufacturing plant in the Midwest, finding people are doing hard work under not good enough conditions. And that'll give some perspectives.
- jonknee 14y ago
  The OP made a big deal about how it's different in China so we can't compare directly. My point is that this is a Chinese national who lives in China and has actually worked at the plant. Regardless of journalistic pedigree, the writer is vastly more capable of writing an honest story from the Chinese perspective than a Western journalist or the OP. A NY Times reporter covering poor working conditions in a meat packing plant in the Midwest is also a story worth reading. It happens, sometimes it changes when it's exposed, but almost never changes without exposure. An American reporting on bad American working conditions is more impactful than a Chinese reporter reporting on poor American conditions and the reverse is also true. Upton Sinclair was able to change things with his work on The Jungle. I don't see this as being a lot different.
  - knwang 14y ago
    >> My point is that this is a Chinese national who lives in China and has actually worked at the plant. Regardless of journalistic pedigree, the writer is vastly more capable of writing an honest story from the Chinese perspective than a Western journalist or the OP. I actually agree. What I wanted to point out is for the reader of the story to keep in mind that the writer is a white collar Shanghai journalist, and would inevitably come with his frame of references because of it. For a NYT journalist living in NY, I believe most Western readers will assume a liberal bias, and view the reporting through some lenses, but the sophistication towards China probably stops at the reporter being a "Chinese Journalist". Sure, the writer is more qualified than you and me, but he didn't answer some critical questions - is this factory above or below average in Chinese manufacturing plants? Is Foxconn raising or lowering labor standards in the area? Is Foxconn providing better alternatives to local labor, who may have to make a living by going down a tunnel in a coal mine or planting rice under the sun? Is having the plant there better or worth than not having the plant there?

mcantelon 14y ago

>This "journalist" puts 1 single Chinese company under a microscope and incites people of first world nations to pick up their pitch forks and torches in protest. Sure the conditions at Foxconn are terrible in comparison to my world view, but I'm not Chinese and my world view is irrelevant here. Did you actually read the article? A Chinese journalist reporting in Chinese media would indicate that Foxconn's conditions are a concern to the Chinese "world view". Apple is the most profitable company in the world, yet they continue to choose a manufacturing partner that treats workers poorly.

deelowe 14y ago
I did and I didn't see anything that provided comparison with conditions in other Chinese factories. I have no way to know what's typical and what's not.
- zenocon 14y ago
  > However, the Chinese new agency Shanghai Evening Post has posted a pretty scathing review of the working conditions at Foxconn, and in particular the iPhone 5 production line. It doesn't make a lot of sense for Chinese media to do a hit piece for Chinese readers if the working conditions are the norm.
  - PakG1 14y ago
    It does make sense when Apple is involved and is a foreign company that makes oodles of cash. It then becomes a very political thing. Plus, normal factories are nowhere near Foxconn's scale, so they're usually not worth reporting on, unless you're doing an industry-wide report. Foxconn has captured the world's attention. The industry has not. What is flashy is what sells, always has.

adaml_623 14y ago

The person writing the article is trying to change the working conditions in that factory (also in other factories). They are doing this by finding out the conditions and pointing them out at an opportune moment in time. They are trying to get Apple to put pressure on Foxconn. It's irrelevant if Foxconn is twice as good as other companies. Sounds like they could be 3 times as good and still need improvement. HN is full of stories about how to get your startup into the media and about startups wanting to change the world. This person is trying to use media coverage of the iPhone 5 to help people directly. Good on them.

aes256 14y ago
> This person is trying to use media coverage of the iPhone 5 to help people directly. Good on them. Is it really helping them, though? Improving working conditions and the wellbeing of employees costs money. Put pressure on Apple/Foxconn to spend more on labor in China and there'll come a point where they just move production elsewhere, leaving these Chinese people without any jobs. Let's not forget these people are working in these factories voluntarily. The working conditions might be a bit crap, but the employees are choosing to endure them at their current wage.
- pm90 14y ago
  >Let's not forget these people are working in these factories voluntarily. The working conditions might be a bit crap, but the employees are choosing to endure them at their current wage. Because they have no choice. The alternative is starving. You have to understand that spreading awareness is the first step in actually solving this problem. That's how working conditions improved in the west, and that is how they'll improve in China.

HorizonXP 14y ago

So wait: because these workers are Chinese, and their working conditions are better than other Chinese factories, they shouldn't be demanding better conditions? Got it. So because people lost the genetic lottery and were born in China, they're lesser than you, and don't deserve the same rights and privileges that you do. I'd like to see you try and work in these conditions and then try to have the same opinion. This Western attitude of shitting on "3rd-world" countries just appals me. As the child of immigrant parents in Canada, I'm absolutely grateful that I was able to escape this world. But I'm sure you'd love to send us back.

bmohlenhoff 14y ago
Whoa now, ad hominem much? Let's keep the mudslinging to a minimum, please. The point he's (admittedly somewhat poorly) attempting to make is that the article doesn't have enough context to draw conclusions about the greater state of factory workers across the entire Chinese industrial base. He never states that the workers shouldn't demand better working conditions, and never says that Foxconn offers a better work environment than other factories.
philwelch 14y ago
It's interesting how middle-class people in the first world elevate their own decadence to the level of a human right. For most of human history, people have had to work very very hard and endure massive absolute poverty. Even today, somebody has to go pick fruit all day and even unemployed Americans aren't willing to: http://seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2016582976_danny23.html http://seattletimes.com/html/dannywestneat/2016582976_danny2...

Vivtek 14y ago

what's with this fixation on Foxconn and Apple? Apple is the most successful business in history. They have literally billions of dollars in the bank. The fact that they have reached this position by exploiting international labor conditions is dissonant with the glowing opinion of them in the American press. It is seen as hypocritical. From your tone, I infer that you think you may agree - but that you feel conflict, and conceal that from yourself by lashing out at the messenger. It is not a valid excuse to say they're Chinese, any more than it is valid to allow West Virginian mine workers to die of black lung to provide cheap heat for Philadelphia. Injustice doesn't have to be in your own street for it to be injustice.

aimatt 14y ago
I think he is trying to say that what this journalist is getting paid could be better or worse than other factories, but there's no way to tell reading this article. The author expects the reader to compare it to dollars as stated with the $4 wage. How many Yuan is that, and how many Yuan is a good living over there? I have a friend living in Shenzhen and he gets by on like $0.25 a day, living like a westerner. And of course you are going to get reprimanded if you don't do your job correctly, e.g. too much oil or inaccurate placement. And of course a new employee won't be good at it at first. Personally, the most atrocious thing I've read in the whole article is that dirty sheets is commonplace. And frankly, that is common in China.
- fastball 14y ago
  Right, and Vivtek's point was that it doesn't matter if Foxconn has better working conditions than other factories in China. Lesser of two evils is still an evil. deelowe seems to have the "if someone's gonna do it, it might as well be us" mentality; as if it was morally ok to exploit labour in China just because China does that to itself. What we should be looking at is the Purchasing Power Parity. If the Chinese factory workers can afford much less than American factory workers, we should try to make it more fair.
- OriginalSyn 14y ago
  I was in China for a month, there's no way you can get away "living like a westerner" on $0.25 USD/day maybe living like a poor Chinese peasant. But just taking a bus somewhere costs around 15 cents.

bkmartin 14y ago

Your statement is like looking at steel mill conditions in the early 1900's in Pittsburgh and the people on wall street saying... "Well, why are they pissed? Its not like its slavery." Just because other Chinese working conditions suck doesn't mean that its right. Yeah, so maybe the pay isn't as high because the cost of living is lower, but that doesn't mean you treat people like crap when they are making you filthy rich just because "everbody does it".

deelowe 14y ago
No, it's like looking at a steel mill in the 1900's and pointing the finger at our government to do something about it. Which we did and it got fixed. Resolution didn't come from journalists going around bashing all the companies that purchased US steel. Resolution came from the government enacting better labor laws. Also, it wasn't just steel. It was steel, oil, coal and many other industries. Which, I'd argue is the same issue in China.
- pm90 14y ago
  The situations are similar not same Unfortunately, the Chinese govt. is not the same as the US govt., w.r.t how it treats its own people. So appealing to their govt. will not work. Appealing to Apple might?

SeanDav 14y ago

and what is/was wrong with slavery, after all every one was doing it and probably slaves on plantations had better living conditions than the people they came from living in the bush... Don't blame the poor plantation owners, they are just doing the same thing as all the others.... Sheesh, until now I never realized it was possible to have your head so far up your ass it ended up buried in the sand...

prodigal_erik 14y ago
The fix for slavery was to ban it across the country. Individual plantation owners couldn't voluntarily give it up if it made them uncompetitive against those who didn't.
error54 14y ago
> and what is/was wrong with slavery Seriously?
- SeanDav 14y ago
  Wow, some people REALLY don't get irony. My whole post was aimed at the parent post by emphasizing the ridiculousness of his argument by use of irony/sarcasm. From the wikipedia definition of irony: "Ironic statements (verbal irony)[2] are statements that imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning."
  - error54 14y ago
    Unfortunately, the world is still in such a sad state that your above comment could absolutely be construed as your own personal beliefs which is why I asked if you were serious lest I overreact and turn what would be an otherwise lively debate into uncouth name calling. But thank you for the definition of the word irony. I wish you a good day.
    - SeanDav 14y ago
      Sorry about my somewhat harsh reply. I come from the UK where irony/sarcasm use is far more common than it appears to be by our cousins in USA. I sometimes forget this and really should use more neutral arguments!

nickik 14y ago

> . There's no reason to expect Foxconn to act any differently than any other Chinese company. The issue here is the Chinese government and their lack of concern for fair and equal treatment of workers. I would say you are wrong partially wrong here, at least in the long term. We did not have good condition 50 or 100 years ago, the conditions in china are better then they where 30 years ago too. The richers a society the better there places of work will become.

wordsthatendinq 14y ago

Unfortunately, I believe the OP misrepresents the original article quite a bit. The Chinese article is three pages long but their summary only covers details from the first page. The second page features personal stories from several employees and their families, which the journalist said made a much deeper impression than the tasks he went through as an undercover employee. The third is a commentary along the lines of "is this the best China can do?" (i.e. forever be implementing other countries' creativity, instead of being the inventors), and a final reflection saying that working conditions at Foxconn have improved greatly over the last two years (apparently working undercover at Foxconn is something that's been done several times before), but the hostile attitude toward employees has not improved. Aside the editorial content at the end, I think the article was quite fair in that the journalist simply reporte what he saw (if the windows really have screens installed for suicide prevention, merely describing this fact does not make an article "trash"). I also don't think the author has any intent of making the Western world go up in arms about anything. The point is more about checking how much things have changed since the famous chain of suicides was made public.

anonymous 14y ago

"Let's be real here." OK, go work in the Foxconn factory and then let's see how you feel about Apple. That's about as "real" as it gets. I wonder if you would actually be more upset with the conditions than the local workers are. Who knows, they might be quite happy with what they're getting. But how would _you_ feel working there? Your world view _is_ relevant here because you are the source of Apple's reputation and their income. You are the primary market.