lauren duboe's List: Apple China Foxconn

• rom the worker suicides to calls for an "ethical" iPhone
• despite the troubles, hundreds of hopeful workers are shown at the Foxconn gates, rushing the front door in the hopes of securing a job that pays less than $1.50 an hour.
• concerned Apple users launched petitions on the websites SumofUs.org and Change.org

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• Tim Cook is currently visiting China, his first trip there as Apple CEO
• Apple has since asked the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to conduct audits of its final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn.
• China is Apple's fastest-growing market and its largest market outside of the U.S
• In the last few years, Apple earnings there have gone from nothing to $13 billion, "so we've really been focused on trying to understand that market," he said.

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• Last month, This American Life ,a popular public radio programme in the United States, retracted an episodeafter discovering the source material - portions of an off-Broadway show about alleged sweatshop conditions at Shenzhen's Foxconnplant - contained "significant fabrications".
• The show, performed by monologist Mike Daiseyand called The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs ,pulled the blinders over several American media outlets.
• bout two weeks later, on March 29, the Fair Labour Association (  FLA  ), an international organisation headquartered in Washington, published its initial report on the working conditions inside  Foxconn  's factories, saying the plants were not sweatshops - although it did point out many problems regarding  Foxconn  's working conditions. 
  
• news about the fabrications
• quickly spread, and suddenly many people believed that all previous allegations and stories about  Foxconn  were false
• The Guangzhou Daily ,for example, ran a headline saying: "  Foxconn  as sweatshop is fake news, well-known American media all disgraced".
• The  FLA
• pointed out many problems in  Foxconn
• the  FLA  left out
• Foxconn  's quasi-militaristic management style, which many Chinese media have covered, not to mention the sense of alienation that workers reportedly experience there. 
  
• bonuses are deducted and they are forced to criticise themselves in front of others.
• Workers are not allowed to talk during work
• If they are found dozing
• strict hierarchy between regular workers and management
• hard for workers to form relationships among co-workers
• Aninvestigation into  Foxconn  by university students from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, published on March 30, found that no substantial improvements had been made following the suicides in 2010, although some remedial measures were taken.
• 36 per cent said they didn't even know whether the factory had a union
• 84 per cent of surveyed workers said they hadn't joined the trade union
• trade union served practically no function
• Foxconn  is still a far better employer than many manufacturers on the mainland
• the company could become a strong example for others to follow.

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• Wall St analysts are predicting the tech giant is set to become the first $1 trillion company
• company's extraordinary growth is stoked by the growing appetite for tablets and smartphones
• Foxconn  's 1.2 million mainland Chinese workers were working up to 14 hours a day for up to six or seven days a week. 
  
• The  FLA  's investigations also revealed that aluminium dust in the plants was a health hazard - and had led to an explosion at a factory in Chengdu in 2011
• 14 per cent of factory workers may not receive ``fair compensation'' for unscheduled overtime. 
  
• spate of suicides at  Foxconn  's factory in the southern city of Shenzhen, where workers have thrown themselves from the roof of a dormitory. 
  
• pple  responded to the  FLA  's report with promises to tighten its standards, while  Foxconn  has agreed to improve working hours, pay, union representation and health and safety conditions
• The research director at consumer research organisation Mobium Group says while no data is yet available to measure the effect of the  Foxconn  revelations on  Apple  , the majority of consumers will evince an interest in the conditions in which products are produced.
• ``When its presented to people, most people will say we don't accept that,'' he says. ``But how it flows through to consumer behaviour is very vexed.''
• He says there is a disconnect between what people say and how they buy. 
  
• Research suggests those who do allow ethical concerns to consistently influence their buying behaviour constitute only about 10 per cent of the population.

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• A nearly one-month long audit confirmed that  Foxconn  employees were overworked and had problems with health, safety and overtime compensation. The audit also found that communication issues led to unsafe working conditions.
• released a report at the time of the audit indicating that  Foxconn  had promised to make its factories compliant with  FLA  and Chinese regulations by July, 2013.
• “I’m glad to hear recognition of  Apple  ’s responsibility to improve working conditions in these factories, but there’s not much evidence of anything new in this announcement…Is  Apple  announcing official policy through Terry Gou now? Until we hear something new from  Apple  itself, speculation about whether  Apple  is actually following through on its commitments to improve workers’ lives is extremely premature."

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• Apple  recently commissioned an independent audit of the Chinese factories of one of its largest suppliers,  Foxconn  Technology Group, and found that workers there were underpaid and overworked.
• Auditors also found a document "that might have been used to prep workers" with answers, says Jorge Perez-Lopez, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Fair Labor Association, which conducted the investigation.
• In response, Louis Woo, assistant to the CEO at  Foxconn  , said in a statement that no factory workers were "given any guidance regarding any encounter they might have with the (  FLA  ) auditors."

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• dealing with a public relations disaster
• threat of calls for a boycott
• word "boycott" has started to appear in media coverage
• workers at Foxconn suffered in conditions that resembled a modern version of bonded labour, working obscenely long shifts in unhealthy conditions with few of the labour rights that workers in the west would take for granted
• It has also generated billions of dollars in profits, in part due to the cheapness of Chinese labour.
• But much of the firm's success rests on its reputation for "cool" among hip urban professionals and a generally positive corporate image.
• Apple took the unusual step of releasing a list of all the firms in its worldwide supply chain as part of its 2011 audit
• It revealed that a staggering 62% of the 229 facilities that it was involved with were not in compliance with Apple's 60-hour maximum working week policy. Almost a third had problem with hazardous waste.

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• Apple's and FLA's own guidelines call for work weeks of 60 hours or less.
• many workers at the Hon Hai factories want to work even more overtime, so they can make more money
• told the FLA that it will raise hourly salaries to compensate workers for the reduced hours
• Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn
• The FLA auditors visited three Foxconn complexes in February and March: Guanlan and Longhua near the coastal manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, and Chengdu in the inland province of Sichuan. They employ a total of 178,000 workers, with an average age of 23.
• Foxconn recently raised salaries by up to 25 percent in the second major salary hike in less than two years.
• assemble products not just for Apple
• Foxconn employs 1.2 million workers
• may need to look elsewhere to have their products assembled.
• in January
• FLA. The organization has audited overseas suppliers for clothing manufacturers, but Apple was the first electronics company to join
• Labor unions have criticized Apple's use of the FLA, insisting that audits are a "top-down" approach. Foxconn's workers would be better served, they believe, by being able to organize.
• "The report will include new promises by Apple that stand to be just as empty as the ones made over the past 5 years," said SumOfUS.org, a coalition of trade unions and consumer groups, ahead of the release of the report.
• The FLA said Foxconn has been recording only accidents that caused work stoppage, but is now committing to recording and addressing all accidents that result in an injury.
• Research firm IHS iSuppli estimates that Apple pays $8 for the assembly of a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S and $188 for its components. It sells the phone wholesale for about $600 to phone companies, which then subsidize it to be able to sell it for $200 with a two-year service contract.
• Many workers live at the factory, where they pay $17.50 per month to live 7 to a room in Foxconn dormitories. The average starting salary is $285 per month, and workers must pay for their food.
• Weir said he was surprised to see how young the workers were. He said many were in their late teens and no one looked like they could be over 30
• Workers get two hour-long meal breaks during each 12-hour shift. They eat together in a cafeteria where they pay $.70 a meal.
• When asked how Foxconn would react if Apple suggested doubling workers' pay, Foxconn executive Louis Woo told Weir that the company would welcome a raise for employees.   "Why not?" Woo said. "That would be good for the employees and also definitely good for China and good for us."
• According to Cult of Mac, Foxconn may have hidden underage employees when the Fair Labor Association conducted its inspections.

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• Foxconn pledges more staff and living wage after public investigation reveals long hours, low pay and safety failings
• excessive working hours, unpaid overtime, health and safety failings, and management interference in trade unions.
• the independent Fair Labor Association found that more than half of employees had worked 11 days or more without rest.
• More than 43% of workers reported experiencing or witnessing an accident at the three plants audited
• blocked exits, lack of or faulty personal protective equipment and missing permits, which the FLA said was remedied when discovered.
• Despite several suicides, which raised the alarm two years ago, and an explosion that killed three workers last year, Foxconn still failed to consult workers on safety,
• The management was found to be nominating candidates for election to worker committees, with the result that "committees are composed not by those who need representation, but instead are dominated by management representatives"
• In December, 46% of the workforce clocked up to 70 hours per week
• between November and January more than a third of staff did not receive the statutory one day off in seven.
• FLA – which has previously specialised in auditing clothing trade sweat shops
• Around two-thirds of workers said their take-home pay did not meet their basic needs, and the FLA will now conduct a cost-of-living study in Shenzhen and Chengdu.
• The use of student interns, supposedly on work experience related to their studies, but who are in fact used to supplement the workforce during holidays
• The FLA found interns working both overtime and night shifts, in violation of the regulations, and said "their employment status remains vague and represents a major risk". Student labour peaks in the summer months, and stood at 5.7% in August 2011
• 5.5% of employees were aged 16 or 17
• average age
• to be 23
• a third of the workforce living in dormitories

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• "Nightline" anchor Bill Weir was granted unprecedented access to Foxconn.
• The average starting salary at Foxconn is around $285 a month or $1.78 an hour
• Even with 80 hours of overtime it considered so low that the Chinese government does not deduct any payroll taxes
• "Suicide Prevention Nets" lined the dormitories on Foxconn's Shenzhen Longhua campus.
• Eight workers share a single room in the Foxconn dormitories
• Foxconn's Shenzhen factories alone employs 235, 000 workers
• An estimated 3000 migrant workers showed up
• Foxconn employees work in silence
• Foxconn recruitment center in Shenzhen, China hoping to qualify for a job
• have traveled for days to be here
• during the spring of 2010 in response to a spate of employee suicides

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