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Jeffrey Green

Dividends Emerge in Pressing Apple Over Working Conditions in China

Summary

Reports have surfaced from the Apple plant Foxconn in China; that there is forced overtime, worker suicides, child labor, and minimum wage violations. This may come as a shock to many people because of Apples reputation of being so advanced. Students and labor unions have started to protest Apple because they are unhappy with the way that Apple is producing their products. They want Apple to communicate with their suppliers over in China and tell them to revoke such practices. However, Apple’s action bring up a new point in an age of outsourced jobs to countries where the labor is cheap. Are corporations able to control their producers actions for making their products? How many corporations know that this is happening? Sweatshops are in many countries around the world, but many of them have not been discovered. When the sweatshop activism in the 90’s was going on many people started to ask the question of how many corporations and industries are using child labor and sweatshops to produce their goods. Consumer pressure forced Apple to join the Fair Labor organization in 2005, the first electronics company to do so (Dividends).

Reflection

There are currently no reports from China on child labor or sweatshops in their country, however it is estimated that about 50-100 million children are working in sweatshops in China (Child). This is very disturbing news because many of American goods are manufactured in Asian countries. Many household items might have been manufactured by a 5 or 6 year old child. What may happen with Apple is that there might be increased pressure on them to reverse the direction that Apple manufacturers are heading. The International Labor Organization does not have any information of labor in China because no non-governmental organizations are allowed into China to do research. This is very troubling because of the high probability that there could be many sweatshops in a massive country like China; that has a great amount of influence upon many other countries in the world. With no NGO’s being allowed in China it is virtually impossible to estimate how strictly the Chinese government can enforce labor laws. With labor laws unenforced many industries take advantage of the looseness of the rules and they start to dramatically increase the amount of sweatshops and children working (Surveys).

Evaluation

One question to be posed is the question of “if corporations are looking for cheap labor, did they really expect to get manufacturers that don’t use child labor and strict working conditions?” How much do other manufacturers check up on their plants in other countries? The buyers of products such as Apple products have strong viewpoints on these topics, but are they going to boycott Apple? If Apple can pull the wool over the eyes of the individual than they will certainly not change the way that their products are being made, because they make billions of dollars a year by using such “cheap” labor. If corporations like Apple had a brain and any morals they would see that using children to do their hard work for no pay, is really not something that the American people approve of.

Questions

1. How will the International Labor Organization react to the news of these speculations?

2. Will the International Labor Organization be able to do anything?

3. Apple is not the only corporation that has this problem, but who else has sweatshops manufacturing their goods?

4. How will Apple handle the situation, will they fire individuals, or will they resolve it “peacefully”?

5. How much attention will an issue like this attract in the news? Citations

"Child Slave Labor in China." IHS Child Slave Labor News ::. Web. 08 Mar. 2012. .

"Dividends Emerge in Pressing Apple Over Working Conditions in China." New York Times. 6 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. .

"Globalization." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Web. 08 Mar. 2012. .

"Surveys." 302 Found. Web. 08 Mar. 2012. .