Editorial: Thoughts on Foxconn
By Laura June 
posted May 21st 2010 10:54AM
posted May 21st 2010 10:54AM
Laura June has been an Editor at Engadget since October of 2008. The views expressed in this editorial are her own, cobbled together by hand, with love, in the United States of America, for a fair wage.
I'm not an economist, and in fact, I've never been very good with money or math. I'm not a manufacturer either -- the only things I make with my own hands are quilts and cakes. I know, however, from these experiences, that the best products take time, and are made with care from the best available materials.
It's obvious, by now -- or it should be -- that something's going on at Foxconn (headquarter in Tucheng, Taiwan), the owners of massive factories in China which most famously assembles Apple products (though it's also responsible for many, many others). There have been several suicide attempts this year -- at least eight (up from two last year) of them successful (though it's been pointed out that the number is pretty much on par with the rest of China) -- and over the past few days we've seen what can only be called a shocking expose by a worker who went undercover there. It's clear, from this report and others (such as last month's National Labor Committee report on the KYE factory in Dongguan City) that most of the people who assemble our gadgets do so under conditions we, in America would never tolerate, and for a wage that is paltry, to say the least. I'm hesitant to pass judgment en masse on how an entire country or a specific factory does business, and I don't have the knowledge or expertise to do so. So I'm not going to.
As I sit here, typing on my MacBook Pro, my iPad sits charging in the bedroom. It's obvious to me that these products have been designed by the best minds working in gadgetry today -- they are beautiful, simple, and reliable. Best of all -- they really work. Now, I don't know how they were made -- but I know that they were assembled in China, most likely at Foxconn. And today, that knowledge doesn't sit very well with me.
It's a complicated issue which brings up complicated feelings. I come from extremely humble beginnings -- immigrants who worked in factories and coal mines for long hours and little money, child laborers and people who died of lung cancer at 50 despite never having smoked. And of course, this is the life they dreamed of. In many ways it was better than dying of starvation in Ireland or Poland. Most Americans have the same stories to tell, and look where we are today: I don't know a single farm hand or factory worker. As the United States became more successful its factories got better, and workers formed unions. In Pittsburgh, where I was born, steel mills and glass factories came to pay great wages, amazing overtime, and had great benefits and pension plans which my grandparents benefit from to this day. The demise of the American factory is yet another complicated issue I am not qualified to tackle.
Apple (and companies like it) now assembles its products in China for complicated reasons -- because that's where the factories are, because it's cheaper, because everybody does it -- but mostly, because it can. Despite ever increasingly obvious signs that our gadgets are made in less than stellar conditions, the American addiction to the new and shiny must be fed. I say this with the guilt of an addict, and admit that I am no better -- after all, I can't think of a single gadget off the top of my head that I could buy that would be 100% American made, which, as an American, is the only way I could have first hand knowledge and security of a product's origins and a factory's working conditions.
I'm not proposing we start up a Facebook group to boycott Apple or Microsoft or any other company. Going on a Twitter rampage about human rights won't cut it in this case either, and whatever media attention these stories get -- while educational -- won't necessarily change anything. I'm not naive. What I am asking is for something different -- something that sound bites on the internet won't have any effect on.
We, the people who buy and love gadgets, who write about them, who obsess over their design and minutiae, must think about what this means. We should go into our purchases knowingly -- the way most of us think with more knowledge than our ancestors about what we put in our mouths and how we clothe ourselves. Would I prefer that Apple assembled my iPhone in the US of A? Yes: there's greater oversight and better working conditions here (and there are many places in the world less opaque than China). Would that mean I would have to pay more? Yes, exponentially. Companies like Apple know that their images matter. It's why they're scrambling to "green themselves up" and prove their products don't end up contributing to the toxic garbage dump that we call Earth. We shouldn't accept companies' meaningless "we're looking into it" press releases when issues like this come up, because at the end of the day, we must come to terms with the fact that they don't actually care about the workers at Foxconn, not really -- as long as the factories keep churning out the goods.
There is, of course, the argument that our companies manufacturing in places like China is a largely good thing for China (never mind the fact that it fulfills our need for cheap products), and its people (think once again of my forebearers starving in Ireland before deciding to head down into the mines of Pennsylvania). One look at the country's economy will tell you that somebody is sure benefiting -- and I'm not going to argue that this train of thought is incorrect. Yes, even a terrible job is better than no job at all, and Foxconn's wages are arguably better than many in China -- but we can't really get around the fact that the reasons our companies choose to manufacture goods outside of places like the United States are stark, sad, and undeniable: because it's cheaper, and because the labor standards are much lower. We shouldn't avoid knowing that, merely because there are other arguments that can make us feel better about it, and I'm not sure the thought that we're benefiting directly from a country's growing pains should be reassuring.
We're not going to stop buying gadgets. But knowing where they come from, and seeing that with open eyes makes all the difference. At a time where most people on the internet give more attention to oil spills, where their food is coming from, how animals are treated, what the earth will look like in 50 years, nuclear weapons -- the list is endless -- we can't really afford to have blinders on about our where our laptops and cellphones come from, who made them, and what they leave behind when we've thrown them in the garbage -- no matter how beautiful their industrial design is.
It's obvious, by now -- or it should be -- that something's going on at Foxconn (headquarter in Tucheng, Taiwan), the owners of massive factories in China which most famously assembles Apple products (though it's also responsible for many, many others). There have been several suicide attempts this year -- at least eight (up from two last year) of them successful (though it's been pointed out that the number is pretty much on par with the rest of China) -- and over the past few days we've seen what can only be called a shocking expose by a worker who went undercover there. It's clear, from this report and others (such as last month's National Labor Committee report on the KYE factory in Dongguan City) that most of the people who assemble our gadgets do so under conditions we, in America would never tolerate, and for a wage that is paltry, to say the least. I'm hesitant to pass judgment en masse on how an entire country or a specific factory does business, and I don't have the knowledge or expertise to do so. So I'm not going to.
It's a complicated issue which brings up complicated feelings. I come from extremely humble beginnings -- immigrants who worked in factories and coal mines for long hours and little money, child laborers and people who died of lung cancer at 50 despite never having smoked. And of course, this is the life they dreamed of. In many ways it was better than dying of starvation in Ireland or Poland. Most Americans have the same stories to tell, and look where we are today: I don't know a single farm hand or factory worker. As the United States became more successful its factories got better, and workers formed unions. In Pittsburgh, where I was born, steel mills and glass factories came to pay great wages, amazing overtime, and had great benefits and pension plans which my grandparents benefit from to this day. The demise of the American factory is yet another complicated issue I am not qualified to tackle.
Apple (and companies like it) now assembles its products in China for complicated reasons -- because that's where the factories are, because it's cheaper, because everybody does it -- but mostly, because it can. Despite ever increasingly obvious signs that our gadgets are made in less than stellar conditions, the American addiction to the new and shiny must be fed. I say this with the guilt of an addict, and admit that I am no better -- after all, I can't think of a single gadget off the top of my head that I could buy that would be 100% American made, which, as an American, is the only way I could have first hand knowledge and security of a product's origins and a factory's working conditions.
I'm not proposing we start up a Facebook group to boycott Apple or Microsoft or any other company. Going on a Twitter rampage about human rights won't cut it in this case either, and whatever media attention these stories get -- while educational -- won't necessarily change anything. I'm not naive. What I am asking is for something different -- something that sound bites on the internet won't have any effect on.
There is, of course, the argument that our companies manufacturing in places like China is a largely good thing for China (never mind the fact that it fulfills our need for cheap products), and its people (think once again of my forebearers starving in Ireland before deciding to head down into the mines of Pennsylvania). One look at the country's economy will tell you that somebody is sure benefiting -- and I'm not going to argue that this train of thought is incorrect. Yes, even a terrible job is better than no job at all, and Foxconn's wages are arguably better than many in China -- but we can't really get around the fact that the reasons our companies choose to manufacture goods outside of places like the United States are stark, sad, and undeniable: because it's cheaper, and because the labor standards are much lower. We shouldn't avoid knowing that, merely because there are other arguments that can make us feel better about it, and I'm not sure the thought that we're benefiting directly from a country's growing pains should be reassuring.
We're not going to stop buying gadgets. But knowing where they come from, and seeing that with open eyes makes all the difference. At a time where most people on the internet give more attention to oil spills, where their food is coming from, how animals are treated, what the earth will look like in 50 years, nuclear weapons -- the list is endless -- we can't really afford to have blinders on about our where our laptops and cellphones come from, who made them, and what they leave behind when we've thrown them in the garbage -- no matter how beautiful their industrial design is.
Well thought out, and I agree totally, I think some of the stories about foxconn only paint it in a bad light, but it gets much much worse in China
@MattsZ
If we want to pay $99 for a smart phone this is the price that is paid on the otherside of things.
@MattsZ as bad as the cause of the gulf oil leak and the mining accident recently happened? it was as bad or even worse in USA, not too long ago, but local newspaper only put small portion in a corner to memorize union workers who were killed by police back in the old days, when capitalism was still brutal.
btw, 10th suicide occurted today at foxconn, jumping off the top floor.
@MattsZ Fact: Capitalism requires Slavery. There is no other way.
@MattsZ The way I see it... in any economy, or in any country, a sucky job is better than no job at all.
@MattsZ
"Joseph Mama" post really said it all for me. Right on the $. I feel everyone should read it.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/19/the-fate-of-a-generation-of-workers-foxconn-undercover-fully-tr/
All the suicides attempts except one where by those that worked in the Apple area of Foxconn. These workers must live onsite, with little to no outside communication. They are under NDAs too. This comes as no surprise when we all know how extremely secretive Apple are about their products leaking. This represents only a small percentage of the entire Foxconn workforce, so within these numbers, the fact that there are such high suicide rates linked to only the Apple production area is alarming to say the least. Those that work in other areas (ie. other companys products) are not under such heavy restrictions. I'm sorry but Apple directly have a part to play in all this based on the fact that they want absolute secrecy and that means inconveniencing these workers and making what is already a bad living state - worse.
@MattsZ
(Note: I am flying to China tomorrow morning to visit my factories in Dongguan... I know first hand from what I speak)
This article is well thought out for someone who doesn't understand math or money. For someone who DOES understand math, or money, or international commerce, well...
This factory is better than many in China... The jobs are desired. The wages end up providing for a lifestyle that is above average for China, and provide for opportunities.
PLEASE read this editorial from the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15kristof.html
We have to understand the CULTURE we are working with there, and the DEMAND for less expensive products here. I have two versions of the product I sell... 100% made in China, and 49% made in China (For BAA/TAA US Government sales). Guess what? The 49% China sourced products cost about 75% more. For 100% US sourced products, I am looking at no less than 130% more cost...
Are you willing to pay 2.3 times more for your gagets???
@Sax25 I really don't think the fact that they are under an NDA has anything to do with committing suicide. There are problems there for sure, but an NDA? If they are killing themselves over and NDA then they have bigger problems then working for Foxconn. I know the NDA I signed at work sure does make me wanna kill myself. :-/
@Ladderless
I think Foxconn is getting a lot of attention simply because it is associated with Apple, and Apple has been getting a lot of attention lately. No doubt similar conditions exist in other factories, but they're not under a spotlight so we don't hear about them.
Am I willing to pay 2-3 times as much for electronics? Heck, I can't afford them now!
@dgskydive
You miss the point entirely. It isn't the NDA itself that is causing them to commit suicide, it is the restrictive working conditions which the NDA plays a part of. Based on Apples secrecy, in addition to the NDA, they aren't allowed to use phones or leave the factory. The NDA you signed might not make you want to kill yourself and that is because your company still lets you leave at the end of the working day and go home to your friends/family and have a life outside of your job. When your company asks you to sign a NDA, prevents you from leaving the office and communicating with the outside world, then come and tell me you won't commit suicide.
@Ladderless
Apple announced a massive multi billion dollar profit (as do many other companies, but as apple is one of the bigger names ill use them as an example) so i dont know why they have to pay such measly wages, or use the fact that they dont make profit for not using western countries for creating their products
again, it all boils down to greed
its the same with companies moving their call centres to india, leading for a very difficult situation when youre trying to fix your networks/anything.
i personally believe its one of the reason for the economic downfall, such big companies paying people in chine measley wages, marketing their products to hard off westerners, and making excessive profit
@Ladderless thanks for the link!
@Sax25 what is your source for that information (that the suicides were all in the Apple part of the plant)? I looked in the undercover article and didn't see it anywhere. Is this just a rumor?
@HoldenMccrotch
Rule #1: Excess profits breed competition. There's imply no way around that fact. Foxconn makes a lot of profit. Great. What's the revenue needed to generate that profit? How much investment was needed to generate the revenue? What percentage of each investor's portfolio tanked, meaning that these profits might just allow most of them to break even?
If the profits are out of line, then someone else will take advantage and open a less profitable factory with lower prices and shut Foxconn down. That's the way it works, and how it keeps profits from becoming too high.
...Or are you saying that any profit is bad? Please start thinking like a non-idiot and understand that just stating a large profit doesn't describe the situation. Large companies with large revenues SHOULD make large profits on an absolute scale. Let's talk about net profits as a percentage of revenues, and let's see how the world REALLY works.
@Kloc You fool fool Americans thinking you buy a smart phone for $99, while the real cost is in the 2 year contract , where you pay about $2500 (calculate it your self, if you don't trust me), let me spell this for you TWO AND HALF GRANDS for a smart phone and 2 years of mobile services.
.
@MattsZ Well if we're only talking about labor without proper compensation / underage. I think apple share's the same boat with it. http://j.mp/apple-child-labor-phone
I agree, the workers are not forced to work at this factory. They have choices. But as same from my experience, they would choose Foxconn, perhaps, they have better benefits, higher paid, than other factories. There's a magic number consumer wants to pay for an item, and we just have to meet that magic number or fear death. If you ever buy potter, you should look into pottery factories and perhaps all factories in Asia and perhaps not buying anything made in Asia...perhaps you will find you won't have anything left to buy :-)
@Ladderless
Obviously yes, but people like you would take the difference continuing to enslave workers.
It's also funny that still exists someone surprised by the fact that paying mp3 players like 10 pizza would be not possible without our faithful asian slaves.
@MetroKnight Eleven people don't agree with you.
Hypocrisy at its best...
@MetroKnight You're such an idiot.
@MattsZ
Laura, what you call "sad" is but the Western interpretation of the word. I'm not saying that it doesn't look pretty bad. But that's because we've had it pretty well (by global standards) pretty much since we were born. You and I won the global lottery. You say yourself, a "bad" job is better than no job at all which is in fact the case a lot of the time in China.
I would like to remind people that its not necessarily a bad thing to buy China. Strictly from an economic point of view it is anything but bad. When you see people's salaries in the high peanuts, that doesn't mean people are starving. In fact, by purchasing from them we are actually bringing them closer to parity with our own currency and making them as well off as we are!
The way I see it, the only thing bad about buying from China is the fact that the government doesn't drop the peg it has with the dollar. Thereby ensuring its own currency is always going to be cheaper (even though economic forces are going in the opposite direction).
Sadly, we can't sustain our lifestyle of consumption and make China richer. Something has to give. So if you want to cringe at the working conditions in mother China, cringe away. But, don't complain about high prices and even potentially shoddy products made domestically. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
The views expressed in this editorial are dwarfed only by a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel.
@Mr Blurrycam
ROFL!!!!!!!
Epic.
@Mr Blurrycam TOO FUNNY!
@Mr Blurrycam
Your comment coupled with your pic make for a delicious pot of epic win java with an authentic NY bagel on the side.
@Mr Blurrycam
I have a bigger sense of humor than most people I know, but I just don't feel like cracking a joke after reading this article.
@Mr Blurrycam ...and a slice of ban!
@Mr Blue That's because you read the article.
@Mr Blurrycam
You, sir, shall receive one token of FREE INTERNET.
@Mr Blue
With a name like Mr. Blue, I'm highly inclined to believe you, in fact, aren't the life of the party.
But on a different note, people process differently. This is a serious article but I see no need to censor one's self from humorous comments if said comments are not insensitive as in the case of Mr. Blurrycam's.
@derX
haha abusing people is funny
@Mr Blurrycam WIN!
Where is China in their industrial evolution/revolution in comparison to our own? Aren't these the same types of condition we worked in in our industrial infancy? I'm not saying its right, but to hold a country that only recently (in the last 20 years) has come into their own as an industrial power to the same standards that we now assume 100-150 years after our own industrial revolution is kind of ludicrous. Just like the USA asking China to try and curb oil and gas and coal consumption is hypocritical. We got to use all the natural resources we wanted during the building of our capitalist society, but because we 'now know better' we're going to tell them not to? Seems very Jingoist to me, and full of fear that we'd be overtaken given an even playing field.
@icase81 +1 I love how the Obama and Bush administrations feel the need to go over and bitch at China while at the same time borrowing billions of dollars from them. American politicians are absurdly arrogant.
@icase81 You're spot on. Similar arguments can be made about human-rights, religious freedom, climate-change etc.
@icase81
Nonsense. Should we likewise say that a country should be free to enslave people or commit genocide just because we made these mistakes with African slaves and Native Americans, respectively? You may be right that the conditions in China are reflective of an earlier step in the process of industrialization, and we cannot ignore this, but it's wrong to turn a blind eye to inhumane conditions just because we were there once, too.
@icase81
Agreed 100%.
@icase81 Indeed, the conditions in factory work in China mirror our own here in America during our Industrial revolution.
The change that will spur development and improve conditions will come from the workers of these factories, just as they did here, just as they did in every post-industrial nation.
Until the workers become 'fed up' with the conditions, nothing will change, no matter how much finger wagging we do. It will happen with time, however it may happen a bit more slowly in China than previous incarnations of this situation. The fact of the matter is, these jobs are amazing opportunity for most of the workers - until the cost outweighs the benefit, this will continue.
@icase81
You're looking at it 100% from the point of view of China and other developing nations, while of course 'western' politicians view it 100% from their own view.
Attempts to curb GHG emissions and improve worker conditions are not protectionist impulses, as much as China's government and some extremely nationalistic citizens want you to think they are, but of course we can't pretend like it's fair to starve their people just because *we* demand better working conditions on their behalf.
@tristis
Does the US really want to get into that game? Should we really be telling another country what it can and can't do? I doubt people here in the US would appreciate it if China came over here and said, "Oh you can't do things like this, you have to do it like this." China gave a "report" on human rights abuses in the United States ( http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-03/12/content_9582821.htm ) and although most of the incidences are either ludicrous or not human rights violations, their point remains clear: Butt out and mind your own business.
In my opinion, thinking that we should somehow make China live by our standards is the same kind of thinking that gets us into wars that we maybe shouldn't have gotten into (you know what I'm talking about). If you want things to change somewhere, fine, get involved personally. Do as Laura June intelligently suggests, and search for alternative places to buy your tech goodies. But I really don't think it's a good idea for us to be lecturing the world from an official standpoint, as if we are squeaky clean.
That said, I love the USA, and always will. But, I understand where other people are coming from.
@tristis Whoa buddy. Genocide is in no way the same thing as somewhat poorer working conditions. I know you like your Kool-Aid sensational but the reality of the situation is about as dull as the combination of sugar and water that delights your tongue so much.
I imagine that if this were the 1920s, you'd have a hell of a time being a yellow journalist.
if you wanna be rich, enslave the people. It's been like that since the birth of human kind. If you were to have a choice of pay $200 for an product made in China and $400 (or more) for the same product made in the US. Tell me what are you going to buy ?
@alext
maybe $200 one from China, at least I can help pay some unfortunate people wages in sweatshop.
I don't think any factory went to Asia to lower the price of final products, they went to lower the cost. that's very different. unless you are buying unbranded stuffs, the reduction in cost will not realized in the final product.
If people aren't going to stop buying these gadgets then none of this, the expose the reports the editorials none of it matters.
If everything stays status quo foxconn won't stop abusing employee's. Why should they? It's worked thus far.
Apple and the other American companies that buy from these factories, might put pressure on foxconn, they might not. Even if they do what guarantee is there that foxconn will stop.. As long as parts keep selling why should they?
The only way to make sure this crap stops is with us and our wallets. But like the author pointed out, even if you don't buy that iPhone because it's made by these people you go buy a HTC phone instead, chances are some part of it was made in a factory just similar to this one.
God knows no one here is going to give up gadgets totally or actually look into who it's made by and how. Thats too much work.
All this fuss isn't going to make a bit of difference in the end.
@bfdhud
I'd buy it. We need to start supporting ourselves again.
@Vandikar1 agreed, we should be self sufficient. But we're not and never will be again.
@bfdhud Btw... it is not "Foxconn" abuse, in fact, if you read the article this editorial is based on, the workers see "Foxconn" as one of the best factories because of the huge permisiveness on extra-hours of work. That, my friend, in the end builds up the anxiety on the workers, because a worker with basic education can have the same wage as one with a university degree, but working 12-18 hours a day, and because of that, they can begin to have a higher level of life, that in the end winds up in physical/mental fatigue, which causes the worker to not be able to do the extra hours, finally getting the "water to the neck" (because we humans tend to burn all the money we earn) and not being able to pay credit-cards, house bills makes anyone anxious enough to crack.
On a side note, remember that these suicides make up part of the "normal" suicide rates any country has, and with the sheer amount of people living in china, it is "normal" to have this suicide rate (my country with less than 30 mill people has less than 1k suicides yearly).
@bfdhud Why is everyone bitching at the consumer and not saying a word about company profits! When companies are small the profit goes directly back into the company. When big companies buy small ones they suck up all the profit and just put it in their bank account.
Heck speaking of Apple, look at their margins! Large companies ftl...