Why Foxconn Workers Rioted in Taiyuan

by Paul Garver

Militarized Security at Taiyuan Foxconn Plant Provokes Riot

During the night of 23-24 September, several thousand assembly workers outfought security guards, overturned police vehicles and damaged company property outside a giant Foxconn factory producing the Apple iPhone5 at Taiyuan in north central China.

Foxconn claimed the riot was a mere dormitory scuffle between workers from two different provinces, but hundreds of photos showing the dramatic actions in the streets outside the factory flooded Chinese Internet sites (most subsequently deleted by government censors).  It required the intervention of some 5000 armed paramilitary forces to put down the rebellion.

The dormitory incident that triggered the riot led to the severe beating of workers by Foxconn security guards (sub-contracted thugs), prompting fellow workers to resist and eventually send the guards into flight.  The militaristic security guards are universally detested by Foxconn workers, who demolished security posts and vehicles during the riot.

Rioting is not the most sophisticated or organized form of collective worker resistance.  But it represents a major step forward from the wave of individual worker suicides of Foxconn workers in 2010.  Workers from other Foxconn plants in Henan, Shandong and Shenzhen provinces posted letters on China’s online forms praising the Taiyuan workers for their courage.

Apple Launches iPhone5 with Forced Student Labor

by Paul Garver

Photo by Steve Jurvetson/Wikimedia/Creative Common

Rural American schools used to empty out for a few weeks in the fall to allow farm children to help harvest potato or fruit crops for family farmers.

The world has changed. In 2012 students are required to leave classrooms in interior Chinese cities to help with the Apple harvest – specifically to produce the Apple iPhone5, just as their predecessors did in 2011 to assemble the Apple iPhone 4S.

According to Chinese media sources, several vocational schools in the city of Huai’an in eastern China required hundreds of students to work on assembly lines at a Foxconn plant to manufacture cables for the iPhone5. Their teachers told them they would not graduate unless they worked for Foxconn, since “Foxconn does not have enough workers without the students.”

An assembly worker in Zhengzhou, where the iPhone5 is assembled, reported to China Labor Watch last month:
We are now producing the iPhone5. We 87 workers have to assemble 3,000 phones per day, and as our team leader told us, after the new iPhone goes public, we will need t assemble 6,500 phones per day. We are now working more than 10 hours a day. There are many student workers in our production line, all of whom are around 18 years old. They’ve been complaining and demanding to go back to school but are never allowed.

The recent promises Apple and Foxconn made through the audits of the Fair Labor Association to reform its brutal regime for Chinese assembly workers and student “interns” evaporated like smoke under the pressures to launch the iPhone5 as quickly as possible.

Chinese Students and Workers Confront Global Capitalism at Foxconn

by Paul Garver

Photo by Steve Jurvetson/Wikimedia/Creative Common

If the cotton mills of Manchester exemplied 19th century capitalism and the River Rouge Ford plant symbolized capital’s 20th century stage, its early 21st century embodiment is Foxconn. In its thirty giant  factory complexes  1.2 million young Chinese workers assemble over 50% of all the electronics products consumed over the globe. Armies of young men and women perform monotonous repetitive assembly work under quasi-military discipline for at least 60 hours a week for minimal pay and virtually no social benefits.

Foxconn, controlled by Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou, is China’s largest exporter and 60th largest global corporation with annual revenues of $79 billion (2010). Its largest corporate customer is Apple, but every other major global electronics company also contracts Foxconn for most of their final assembly tasks. Sophisticated components and parts are manufactured in Korea, Japan, Europe and the USA, shipped to China for final assembly, and then re-exported for sale mainly to more affluent consumers in the Triad (North America, Europe and Japan). About 1% of the cost of your iPhone, iPad or other advanced electronic device goes to pay the wages of the Chinese workers who assemble them, while another 1% goes to Foxconn executives and shareholders.

Foxconn is a linchpin of the most leading edge and most profitable sectors of global capital. Although its own operating profit margins are razor thin, shaved by the constant cost-squeezing of Apple and other corporate customers, Foxconn has made itself indispensable to global capital by fully utilizing its strategic position in China.

But Goliath has feet of clay. Students and scholars from Mainland China and Hong Kong have been struggling to assist Foxconn workers improve their conditions. And they are beginning to win some astonishing victories.  We can help them extend and consolidate those victories.

FLA Audit shows Few Improvements for Foxconn Workers

by Debby Chan

Hong Kong, 24 August 2012

On 21 August, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) released a verification report on labour practices at three Foxconn factories producing for Apple in China that were the subject of an earlier FLA investigation. In its report, the FLA trumpets the speedy progress at Foxconn in remediating widespread labour rights violations. However the FLA has overstated the improvements at Foxconn.

Firstly, most of the actions completed by Foxconn are changes at the policy level only, but few substantial changes in labour practices were found at this stage.

Secondly, Foxconn has deliberately delayed implementing many of the actions called for in the remediation plan, even those that are almost cost-free.

Thirdly, workers have had no opportunity to participate in the remedial action process. SACOM has repeatedly demanded democratic trade unions at Foxconn as an indispensable step in reforming its labour practices.

Give Apple Workers a Voice in their Future!

A most unusual joint statement by two major international labor organizations and 3 NGOs demands that Apple respect the rights of Chinese assembly workers to collective bargaining over wages and working conditions.  The statement is signed by the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), GoodElectronics, MakeITFair, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), and SumOfUs. pdf file here

23 March 2012

 By joining the Fair Labor Association, Apple has embarked on its latest program of auditing its suppliers, ostensibly to investigate and remedy the appalling abuses in its supply chain that have been well documented and widely reported. While Apple claims that it is finally taking the issue seriously, its top-down auditing approach can never be a long-term solution to the systematic violations of labour rights that are occurring every day in the manufacture of electronic products. Indeed, Apple promised in 2006 that auditing would protect the rights of workers in its global supply chain, with results that are all too apparent.

The FLA will likely publish next week some of the results of its audits at Foxconn and the organization will no doubt report that labor rights violations are taking place at these factories. Since violations at Foxconn have been well documented by independent investigators, and in many cases admitted by Apple itself, the FLA could hardly claim that all is well. We also have no doubt that the FLA’s report will be coupled with another round of promises from Apple and Foxconn that they will finally clean up their act. The question, however, is not whether there are severe labor rights problems in Apple’s supply chain. This has been obvious for years. And the question is not whether Apple will promise, again, to fix these problems. They surely will. The question is whether anything will actually change.

The Apple Retraction

by Mark Engler

Mark Engler

For the first time in the history of the much-loved radio program This American Life, Ira Glass and his team have decided to retract a story. The story in question is performer Mike Daisey’s powerful piece on working conditions in the Chinese facilities that produce iPads and iPhones. It was entitled, “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory.”

Not long after it first aired in January, I offered high praise for Daisey’s story. I was hardly the only one who had been deeply moved. The episode became the most-downloaded in This American Life’s history, and it had a big impact in shaping the subsequent discussion of Apple sweatshops.

Unfortunately, in crafting an evocative narrative, Daisey took some serious liberties with the facts. And this has resulted in a sad situation that is sure to set back the cause of pro-labor activists.

It is important to understand the nature of the retraction. The exploitative working conditions in the Chinese factories discussed in the story were genuine. Long hours, repetitive stress injuries, military-style management, suicides, exposure to toxic chemicals—none of this is disputed. In fact, these conditions have been widely reported on and verified outside of Daisey’s story, including in a prominent two-part series in the New York Times in January.

Apple Refuses to Meet With Hong Kong Consumers

by Debby Chan

Protest at Apple Store in Hong Kong

Labour groups and media have been reporting the unethical labour practices at Apple suppliers in China in the past 2 years. Under the intense pressure, Apple joined the Fair Labour Association (FLA) in January 2012 in an attempt to create a transparent and socially responsible image. Regrettably, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) delivered the petition letter to the Apple Store yesterday, Apple refused to receive the letter and called the police to disperse the protesters.

Without a doubt, Apple products are extremely popular all over the world. No Apple consumer would expect the Apple gadgets are produced under sweatshop-like conditions in China. In 2009, over 137 workers in Wintek, an Apple supplier in Suzhou China, were poisoned by n-hexane while cleaning the iPhone touch screens. The victims have written 3 letters to Apple but there is no response from the company. Last year, a deadly explosion occurred in the polishing department of Foxconn’s Chengdu factory. Four workers died and 18 were injured.

Furthrmore, Apple also approves the use of student workers as de facto labour at Foxconn. If students refuse to do internship, they are threatened with not being permitted to graduate from school. The use of student workers is definitely a form of involuntary labour. More importantly, these are not single incidents but systematic problems at Apple suppliers.

 Consumers across the world are disturbed by the deplorable working conditions at Apple suppliers. There are dozens of concerned groups or individuals launched signature campaign on Apple labour practices. One of the groups, Sum of Us, has launched an online signature campaign to urge Apple to make iPhone 5 ethically. As of 22 February, the group has collected over 110,000 signatures to urge Apple. Sum Of Us has called on supporters to deliver signatures to the Apple Store. Yesterday, SACOM supported the initiative and intended to send the signatures to the Apple Store in Hong Kong. SACOM has patiently waited for a representative from the Apple Store to receive the letter for an hour. It was outrageous that Apple refused to accept the letter and called the police to send our group away. Although Apple has joined the FLA as if it is more open to public scrutiny, it simply ignores the petition from 110,000 signatories.

 Apple’s stock surpassed $500 last week and keeps climbing. As the world’s most valuable brand, it can certainly afford to pay a living wage to the production workers. However, Apple fans who demand ethical Apple products are ignored. This demonstrates the arrogance and hypocrisy of the corporation. And the FLA membership does not make any difference to Apple.

Sze Wan Debby Chan is Project Officer for the Hong Kong-based Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM).

Fair Labor Association Waters Down Violations at Foxconn

 

by Debby Chan

Owing to escalating pressure on Apple from consumers, computer giant Apple Inc. recently purchased a membership in the Fair Labour Association (FLA). The group began factory inspections at Apple suppliers last week. After one week of research, on 15 February, the president of the FLA, Auret van Heerden, praised the working conditions at Foxconn as “better than average”. He suggested that the recent rash of worker suicides at Foxconn could be attributed to “boredom and alienation,” which are not considered labour rights violations. Today, the FLA contradicts its previous statement and announces that “tons of issues” are uncovered at Foxcon but doesn’t give any details. Both these statements make SACOM question the FLA’s ability to carry out a serious independent investigation. The FLA seems to be trumpeting the positive aspects of Foxconn and putting its labour rights abuses in undertones.

Since 2008, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) has been monitoring the working conditions at Foxconn. And SACOM has found systematic labour rights violations in the company, including involuntary labour, negligence in work safety and excessive overtime. Disappointingly, FLA has avoided these problems. The recent statements from the FLA demonstrate that its audits represent merely a cosmetic effort to cover up Apple’s unethical labour practices, rather than a real commitment to decent working conditions.

The Fair Labor Association Will Audit Apple Factories in China – So What?

by Paul Garver

 When I read the otherwise well researched feature story in the New York Times, in which Apple announced it would have the Fair Labor Association audit the factories of its suppliers, I noted the absence of comment by the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM).  Hong Kong-based SACOM has been the most effective advocate for the rights of Chinese workers in the electronics industry, and its reseachers have uncovered and publicized the most flagrant abuses at Apple supplier Foxconn’s sprawling factory complexes in China.

In response to my inquiry, SACOM director Sze Wan Debby Chan responded that the media had tried to contact her, but during the night when she was sleeping.  She  associated herself with the critical comments of U.S. NGOs United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and Workers’ Rights Consortium (WRC) about the record of the Fair Labor Association (FLA) as part of a corrupt “Social Responsibility industry” that mainly serves to protect corporations against their critics rather than as a means for correcting abuses.

Debby Chan also forwarded a synopsis of comments she made for a Hong Kong newspaper.  In essence,  the issue is not audits, but whether Apple actually is committed to correcting structural abuses in its major suppliers.  Apple has long conducted inspections of its production facilities in China, and knows of the problems of excessive overtime, overwork, and safety violations that have killed or maimed many workers.   Apple has even produced reports that show major problems, but has never identified specific violators nor effectively insisted on reforms.  So it is good that there is more public discussion of the massive violations of workers’ rights and more awareness among Apple customers in the USA, but this will not lead to improvements for Chinese workers without massive mobilization.

Debby went on to remind us of SACOM’s most recent campaign against forced labor by students at major Apple suppler Foxconn.  “For example, the use of student workers at Foxconn is a form of involuntary labour.  Vocational students who study education, tourism, pharmacy, journalism, English, etc., are forced to do involuntary internships at Foxconn plants in Chengdu and Zhengzhou, the iPad and iPhone manufacturers respectively.  The work is irrelevant to the student’s studies, but unless they work at Foxconn they will not receive graduation certificates.”

I have just come across a superb article by Arun Gupta on Truthout,
“iEmpire: Apple’s Sordid Business Practices Are Even Worse than You Think.”   Using SACOM’s grassroots research, an interview with Debby Chan, and scholarly research by Ngai Pun and Jenny Chan (Debby Chan’s predecessor as SACOM Director), Arun Gupta describes in great detail the massive use of involuntary forced labor by hundreds of thousands of student “interns”  by Foxconn’s Apple factories in China.

As we have long pointed out in posts on Talking Union, based on earlier reports by SACOM researchers, our iPads and iPhones are drenched in blood.  Nearly a million young Chinese, who monotonously assemble tiny parts by hand or polish cases with toxic materials for endless hours, form the underbelly of Apple’s profitable business empire.  About  2% of the final cost of an Apple product goes for the labor costs of assembly.   Doubling that labor cost, slightly reducing Apple’s huge profit margins, would allow shorter hours, better working conditions, and the elimination of forced teen-age labor in Foxconn’s massive complexes of factories in China.  Apple is now the world’s largest and most profitable corporation (and Foxconn is no slouch at 60th largest).

You can sign on to SACOM’s petition against forced labor by Chinese student interns here.

 

 

China’s advantage- Serfdom

by Tula Connell. AFL- Cio

Image via CrunchBase

A much-discussed report in the Sunday New York Times on why iPhones are made in China highlights the transition of Apple guru Steve Jobs who, a few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, bragged it was “a machine that is made in America.” Today, millions of Apple products like iPhones, iPads and Kindles are made in China sweatshops like Foxconn.

So what happened?

In a nutshell, this:

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul [at a Chinese factory]. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

(There are three articles in the NY Times series. Each is important.  See links below in Jobs.)

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.