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Foxconn drops suit
Foxconn, in a good move for a change, has dropped the libel suit against the reporters who broke the iPod factory story. The reporters alleged that workers assembling Apple's iconic iPod were not being treated according to Chinese labor laws. An Apple lead investigation found some issues with the factory, but overall it checked.Bravo to Foxconn for coming to their senses and dropping this ridiculous lawsuit.
Hon Hai completely drops suit against "iPod City" journos
After folding under public (and perhaps governmental) pressure and reducing the damages it was seeking against two Chinese journalists from 30 million yuan ($3.77 million) to just 1 yuan (12 cents), Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry has now wised up and dropped the libel suit altogether. As a quick review (though we doubt that you need one), Hon Hai took legal action against China Business News' Wang You and Weng Boa following their report on the much-publicized working conditions at the Foxconn plant lovingly dubbed "iPod City," asking for compensation amounting to many times the reporters' annual salaries and convincing a court to temporarily freeze their assets. The PR nightmare ended on Sunday when Hon Hai chose not to pursue the case any further, according to China's official Xinhua news agency, and was capped off with a mutual apology between the firm and newspaper for all the trouble that the lawsuit had caused. In an encouraging sign that this method of dispute settlement may actually be gaining ground elsewhere in the world, TiVo followed the announcement by sending a bouquet of flowers to Echostar, NTP decided to return the $612 million it won from RIM inside a Hallmark greeting card, and Shannon Derrik and Stephanie Eick (the iPod lawsuit girls) realized after a mediated tea party that they wanted to forgo the legal silliness and go back to being BFFs.
China orders "iPod City" to establish labor union
So, we're not sure how much bargaining power unions have in a Communist country, but much to our surprise, the Chinese provincial government of Shenzhen has actually demanded that Hon Hai Precision Industry allow its "iPod City" workers to unionize. Unlike American unions, which are generally organized by trade, the Chinese versions are company-specific, and must be affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (or ACFTU) -- a body that has repeatedly been accused of colluding with management and security personnel in breaking up employee-led protests. You might think that the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions -- which had criticized Apple's investigation and subsequent report concerning working conditions at the Foxconn plant -- would be pleased with this development, but actually it argues that the ACFTU, as a non-independent body, "cannot be regarded as an authentic voice of Chinese workers." So in the end, are the Foxconn laborers really any better off now than they were before that Daily Mail article initiated this whole series of events? In reality, probably a little, but not much -- yes there may be some cutbacks in their hours and the dormitories may be a little cleaner, but until China as a whole is able to upgrade everyone's standard of living, the lives of workers in iPod City and countless plants like it will unfortunately remain mostly unchanged.[Via Reuters]
Foxconn folds under pressure, drastically declaws lawsuit
It's tough work running the multi-billion dollar industrial powerhouse that is Hon Hai Precision Industry. First you get slammed with damning accusations about working conditions at your iPod-producing Foxconn plant, and like any responsible corporate citizen, you completely deny the allegations and threaten legal action against the "conspirators" responsible for slandering you. Then, even after you've admitted to some labor law violations and an outside investigation by Apple confirms these as well as other breaches in its supplier code of conduct, you somehow think the best course of action is to still sue the Chinese journalists who covered the story in order to make their lives a living hell. Well once again good old Hon Hai has admitted that it dropped the ball on this one, citing "great public attention on the target of the injunction" as the reason that it both drastically reduced the damages it was seeking from $3.8 million to a symbolic one yuan (12 cents) and withdrew its request to freeze Wang You's and Weng Bao's personal assets. So in other words, the leaders of iPod City didn't so much regret the suit as they did the public outcry that followed -- yet another example of media pressure shaming big business into doing the right thing. Hmm, now where did we just hear about a similar sequence of events happening in the United States? No matter -- power to the people![Via Techdirt]
Foxconn sues reporter over iPod factory conditions story
Foxconn knows that when your image has been tarnished with, oh let's say, suspicion of abusive labor practices that there is only one way to win the world back to your side. Sue the two journalists who wrote the story for 500 times what they will make in their lives and freeze their assets. Doesn't it just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?Here's hoping that the Chinese government is sensible (it could happen, right?) and sides with the reporters who were just doing their jobs.
Foxconn sues two Chinese journalists over iPod city story
You're a huge business worried about your recently tarnished image -- what's the first thing you do? If you answered sue the hell out of the journalists who reported possible sweatshop labor tactics going down in your factories, congratulations, you might be prepared for a fast-paced career at Foxconn, proprietor of iPod city! We don't normally like to get all meta on you guys, but not only did Foxconn attempt to sue for US $3.77 million Wang You and Weng Bao, the journalist and editor at China Business News that published the iPod City story, the company went so far as to have the Chinese courts freeze their assets, locking them out of their cars and homes -- you know, a totally appropriate reaction to the journalistic community for trying to expose corporate malfeasance. (Did we tell you Microsoft hired a lone sniper to take us out after FairUse4WM?) So our hats go off to you Foxconn, for setting the bar so very high for moral business practices and fair treatment of others; now more than ever we're totally convinced that you're totally and completely innocent of all charges leveled against you by the press.[Via iLounge]
Trade unions take issue with "iPod City" report
So even though Apple's investigation of the Chinese manufacturing plant that's come to be known as "iPod City" found no egregious violations in the working conditions (except for, you know, the long hours, military-like punishments, and not exactly "Cribs"-style living arrangements), at least one major trade union conglomerate isn't all that happy with its conclusions. Speaking to BBC News, the director of human and trade union rights at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Janek Kuczkiewicz, noted that his organization was "not impressed either by the report or by the findings of Apple." Most troubling to the ICFTU was the fact that only 100 of the over 30,000 employees working at the Foxconn-owned plant were interviewed by Apple's special investigative team; and since the conditions under which the interviews were held is unknown (i.e. were they being watched by supervisors and told to just smile and nod?), Kuczkiewicz stressed that "we have serious reservations about the report." He went on to point out that there are other labor standards such as the freedoms from discrimination, of association, and to bargain collectively that were not necessarily enjoyed by the Foxconn employees. While it's certainly admirable that not everyone is simply lauding Apple for its inquiry and assuming massive changes are underway, it's also important to realize that when doing business in a foreign country, outside corporations don't always have the final say on how things are run; so as much as Mr. Kuczkiewicz would like to see the workers band together and demand $5.15 an hour, we're not sure how well that would go over with the Chinese government. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that manufacturers are driving each other to find cheaper and cheaper labor in order to maintain already thin margins, and when that's the case, even a company as rich and powerful as Apple can do little to create the utopic working conditions that we'd all like to see.[Via The Inquirer and PC Pro]
Apple completes "iPod City" investigation into Foxconn
Well, looks like Apple's all done with that investigation into Foxconn's 200,000 person manufacturing facility where some 30,000 people assemble iPods for a living. Apparently Cupertino farmed out some of the work to a firm that specializes in workplace standards of conduct, and put in over 1200 "person-hours" (i.e. a team of 5 people working 40 hours a week for 30 workdays) into investigating everybody from line workers to executives to the janitors at the plant. The long and short of it is Apple apparently did not find child or forced labor, learned that more than half of iPod city residents were earning more than minimum wage (and none below), and that there was no forced overtime, but it was found that workweeks too infrequently went long (as often as 35% of the time), some interim dorms for the workers sounded pretty harsh (think: rows of triple bunk-beds on a factory floor), and some workers were "made to stand at attention" when they did something wrong. That Apple took special attention to that last bit is only a wee bit ironic, given Steve's reputation for flying off the handle and firing people on the spot, but hey, "Apple has a zero tolerance policy for any instance, isolated or not, of any treatment of workers that could be interpreted as harsh," and that's the way it is. You know, come to think of it all this gadget blogging is wearing a little thin -- all this iPod assembly stuff kinda sounds like the life for us. Where do we sign up to live in the real iPod city, and not this fake one we've built for ourselves?[Thanks, Motoi & Joey]
Apple: "iPod City" investigation still underway
Despite recent comments by a Foxconn spokesperson that Apple had already investigated and found no problems with the Chinese factory that has come to be known as "iPod City," BusinessWeek is reporting that the probe is still in fact underway, with an Apple representative reiterating that the company takes "allegations of noncompliance very seriously." According to spokesperson Steve Dowling, Apple is in the midst of a "thorough audit" of the Hon Hai-owned plant, which had recently admitted to breaking labor laws concerning overtime, but which continues to deny other allegations contained in the original Daily Mail exposé. Specifically, Dowling says that the auditors are looking into "employee working and living conditions," conducting interviews with workers and their managers (separately, we hope), and generally making sure that the factory lives up to a supplier code of conduct that supposedly "sets the bar higher than accepted industry standards." This is all very good news indeed, but now Apple faces yet another hurdle in the form of a jaded public highly skeptical of corporate-speak, meaning that whether the investigation turns up violations or not, the company may still have a hard time convincing folks to accept the auditors' final verdict.[Via AppleInsider, image courtesy of Mail on Sunday]
"iPod City" admits labor law violations
In what would seem to be a 180-degree reversal from last week's vehement denials concerning the Daily Mail's "iPod City" exposé, Hon Hai Precision Industry's Foxconn factory has now come forward to admit that it has indeed been in violation of Chinese labor laws. Even though the company -- which was accused of underpaying and overworking employees -- had initially threatened to take legal action over the story, ChinaCSR is now reporting that a Foxconn spokesperson has publicly copped to the fact that its workers are forced to be on duty an extra 80 hours a month, which is 44 more hours of overtime than Chinese regulations allow (or 1.5 to 2 extra hours per day depending on the length of their work week). On the plus side, company representative Li Zong did point out that the workers are being paid according the minimum salary standards of the Shenzhen local government, so at least all those extra hours will help them maintain the highest standard of living for the scant amount of free time they get to spend in their overcrowded dormitories (supposedly pictured above). We realize that a lot of people are arguing that it's not fair to single out Apple when this is an industry-wide problem, but the fact of the matter is that Apple has been called out, and this new revelation only makes it that much more important for the company to conduct its promised investigation in a thorough and open manner.Update: It should also be noted that the ChinaCSR article quotes Li as saying that "Apple has sent a special team to investigate, but has found no problem with Foxconn." While it's not clear when this investigation took place, we're hoping that Apple has more to say on the matter, because it sounds more than a little shady if Cupertino gave Foxconn the thumbs-up while these admitted violations were occuring.[Via The Inquirer]
Foxconn denies iPod sweatshop accusations
Apple's promise to investigate "iPod City" allegations wasn't quite the flat-out denial we were expecting for a situation like this, but the accused iPod manufacturer, Foxconn Electronics (aka Hon Hai Precision Industry), was a little more straight forward. Spokesman Edmund Ding stated that there were huge discrepancies between the truth and the claims in the report, and that Foxconn reserves the right to take legal action over the report. A couple notable facts include Ding's claim that Foxconn has a worldwide workforce of about 160,000 -- compared to the 200,000 in one factory claimed by the report. Foxconn's website has also denied them even having a factory in Suzhou, which was mentioned as an "iPod City" in the accusatory article. Ding was also careful to mention that Foxconn abides by the employment law of China for minimum wage, and has been actively making improvements to workers' living conditions with the addition of free laundry service, sports facilities, libraries and other facilities. We're sure we haven't heard the last of the plight of iPod workers, but at least according to their employer it doesn't really sound too terrible.[Via iLounge]Read - Foxconn denies allegationsRead - No iPod city in Sozhou
