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Bobby Yip / Reuters file
Workers are seen inside a Foxconn factory in the township of Longhua in the southern Guangdong province, in 2010.
BEIJING—Last week, the New York Times published a report about working conditions at factories producing Apple products in China. Under the spotlight was Foxconn Technology, a key manufacturer for Apple and “China’s largest exporter and one of the nation’s biggest employers, with 1.2 million workers,” responsible for churning out tens of millions of iPhones and iPads sold around the world.
The article focused specifically on Foxconn’s Chengdu factory, where employees have complained about nonstop shifts, arduous overtime, crowded dormitories, mental health (nearly twenty workers at Foxconn have committed suicide over two years), and a hazardous working environment that's led to at least one explosion, in May 2011.
The New York Times report was also published in Chinese in the well-respected business and economic news weekly Caixin, where Chinese readers could post comments in response to the story.
Since it was released over the Lunar New Year festival, a week-long holiday which brings the country to a rare standstill, reaction seemed relatively muted. As we write this, there were 650 comments on Caixin’s Weibo page (a Twitter-like Chinese microblog)--compared to the 1,770 comments on the Times’ website.
A cynical reaction in China
On Caixin’s Weibo site, some of the comments condemned Apple’s corporate practices, but many also criticized the Chinese government for failing to protect its own citizens.
“Labor protection and social security is not only the responsibility of corporations. If the government had regulations and supervised the corporations, then they cannot be that irresponsible,” wrote one person.
A significant number also captured a sentiment that was cynical but perhaps very pragmatic of many Chinese:
“If they don’t work for Apple, those workers don’t have anywhere to shed their sweat and blood.”
“Why not kick Apple out? Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs.“
“They are criticizing Apple only, because Apple is a huge target. The migrant workers hired by state-owned enterprises here can hardly be as good as Apple’s. Take care of your own workers before you pay attention to other people’s suppliers.”
All of which was bolstered by something this week that explains--in part--why the response in China might not be as outraged as those in the West might expect.
Workers want those jobs
On Monday, tens of thousands of people lined up outside a job agency to apply for an estimated 100,000 new jobs Foxconn is seeking to fill at its factory in Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan province.
Foxconn wants to double its current workforce of 130,000 at the Zhengzhou plant, which it opened last year. The facility already churns out 200,000 iPhones a day and is part of Foxconn’s grand plan to make Zhengzhou the world’s largest smartphone manufacturing base.
The basic starting salary advertised--according to a report posted on M.I.C. Gadget, a blogsite about tech and other related matters in China—is 1,650 yuan a month ($261), which includes dorm housing and food.
The pay is lower than comparable salaries Foxconn pays workers at its Shenzhen factory in southern China. But that may be a sacrifice Henan workers are willing to make initially.
With a population in excess of 100 million, Henan is China’s most populous province. A fifth of them are migrant workers who travel widely to find jobs in the country’s more prosperous regions like the south or coast.
With additional reporting from Bo Gu.
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The "Free" Trade agreements sneaked in by Bill Clinton as a parting gift to his cronies have done us in, as predicted by Ross Perot. I think I'll buy a big boat and charge Americans unemployed for several years a thousand bucks apiece to smuggle them into China, so they can live in the employee dormitories and send their pay back to their families in America.
Why is it we all can't see this is our own fault. I believe it started with Bell Labs invention of the transistor which the U.S. government wanted to give to the Japanese to help revitalize their economy after WWII. Everyone always thinks the jobs move to increase corporate profits, but this is actually false. In the 60's we were told jobs were moving to the south to get away from the Unions and the associated labor costs to boost profits. Then in the 70's we heard the jobs were moving over seas for even cheaper labor to boost profits. What you actually find is these company's were just trying to stay in business against the cheaper imports that the American buying public were buying up, and we're not talking all high tech either. A perfect example is Cannon Towels. The largest cotton mill in the world was in North Carolina but side by side on the shelves at the stores consumers chose the cheaper foreign imports versus the American union made Cannon. Now you have union workers wanting more money and consumers wanting to pay less money and an American company forced to slash prices to compete to a point where it started to lose money due to energy costs and EPA rules. So they are now forced to ship the machinery and jobs over seas through no fault of their own, but rather the American consumers lust with a bargain. These so called bargains end up costing more over time than what the consumers could have ever saved in the short term. You lose the tax revenue from the loss of the higher paying jobs, you add to the trade deficit, we have more Americans as they lose their higher paying jobs and take lower paying ones with less revenue to stimulate the economy and they look for even more foreign bargains and we can see these bargains are affecting workers pay and conditions half way around the world. We know we can't make everything here but we can control what we buy. Anything high end really doesn't affect the economy. I f you bought a Porsche or Rolls Royce or Ferrari you wouldn't make an impact on the economy, but by buying Honda and Toyota and Nissan etc. you put pressure on your own company's losing high paying jobs which affect communities and cities across the country. Then we have these foreign manufacturers come in to pristine areas of the country away from unions where the areas are so happy to get the jobs they give them all types of tax breaks and they are able to pay the workers well but no where near what the workers get at the American company's that their replacing. Then I hear how their made here but the profits go back across the ocean so it's no different from buying oil or anything else adding to the trade deficit. The money is out of the country and the fed prints more so we'll have something to use. If we look back into the 50's we imported raw materials and high end items and things that just weren't worth making here and we had enough jobs and money that we were able to build anything we wanted with money left over for things like NASA and high tech weapons to help secure the U.S. from attack and all was good. But that transistor is what started it all. Small cheap portable radios with several in every home and every where you went, at the beach, work or at parks got us and Europe also into this financial and unemployment crisis. Who would have thought?
Apple charges way too much for the cheap @!$%# they make in China... way too high a price to pay!
Did you buy any of their crap ? If you did, you must like them very much.
Lining up for a job with huge risk of suicide ? I guess death is not the worst threat in China, and life is valued higher than what they are getting in a Foxconn job.
Foxconn announced last week that if China cracks down on their labor practices and working conditions they will move a huge part of their manufacturing operations to Brazil, where they are building five factories.
FYI, Foxconn isn't Chinese. It's Taiwanese. They're just in China because of the cheap labor and now it's clear that they would have no problems going to a third country if conditions in China become less favorable. Corporate greed knows no boundaries.
If corporations where left to their own devices (UN-regulated,no laws,no government protections FOR EMPLOYEES) then this is how they would treat everyone who works for them even here in the USA...That is the reason they chose to move over seas to make their wares....they know they can treat employes anyway they want to...and all this was made possible by NAFTA ...You remember those letters..that was supposed to BE the cats meow to all our problems ..it was supposed to be good for our economy...you remember? they told us that the low wage dead end jobs would go over seas and the new High tech jobs would be left here....yep I remember...our politicians lied to us sold us out and now we have no manufacturing jobs left...and now they all run for office promising us jobs jobs jobs...yeah right LIARS,LIARS,LIARS....