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Comment by vanusa | Hacker News Reader

For women who assembled iPhones at a Foxconn plant in southern India, crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms were problems to be endured for the paycheck.

And:

The unrest at Foxconn was the second involving an Apple supplier in India in a year. In December 2020, thousands of contract workers at a factory owned by Wistron Corp destroyed equipment and vehicles over the alleged non-payment of wages, causing estimated damage of $60 million.

Which will just keep going on and on and on, of course.

Until we stop buying their shiny products any more than strictly necessary. And those making ICT4 and higher at Apple -- especially those working at HQ in any capacity -- get together and tell their bosses they simply will not allow this shameful dereliction of duty on their part to continue. And will absolutely resign if there are any further occurrences of it.

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Voting with your wallet doesn't work. There is no ethical consumption under our current economic system. The only way to end this is to end the global neoliberal anti-protectionist social and economic order which permits serfdom in third-world countries for lower prices on final goods here at home.

Note that I'm not advocating for protectionism. Free trade is largely a good thing. But the current system is unsustainable and affords too much privilege to multinationals to self-police. It cannot be allowed to continue unchecked, lest we sacrifice our environment and the living/working conditions of families and individuals halfway around the world.

There is no ethical consumption under our current economic system.

This is manifestly false. It may only exist in narrow domains. But it most certainly exists, and in the mainstream. I'm sure you can think of a few examples.

You're right though that it cannot be relied on a strong lever in the near-term.

The only way to end this is to end the global neoliberal anti-protectionist social and economic order which permits serfdom in third-world countries for lower prices on final goods here at home.

Unfortunately there's no clear route to "just doing this" either. It's a genuinely vexxing problem that I certainly do not pretend to know the answer to. Indeed, it's kind of one of those big questions people have been wrestling with, and throwing bombs, and whacking people on the head over for quite some time now, is it not.

I only know that I'm not going to pretend this shit doesn't seriously bother me. And as a matter of principle, I try not to buy fancy gadgetry of any kind that I don't literally need to get through the day.

You mean Foxconn, right? As per my understanding this is not Apple's factory, simply just a factory that makes Apple products.

It is 100 percent Apple's responsibility to guarantee safe and humane working conditions for all workers at every level in its supply chain.

The idea that this is Foxconn's responsibility, or that Apple is "unable" to proactively monitor what happens at these plants is just BS.

I don't think that's how the world works. Just because you hate Apple, doesn't make it any different. I have a friend who runs a B2B sales company, by selling things like pencils and cups with logos on them, and he frequently communicates with a wide variety of factories who make those things, and in none of the factories does he have any control over how they do work, or what process they follow. But according to your logic, he should? And not only _should_, but it's his *responsibility*? Or do you just make this argument selectively based on how much money the company has who hires a factory? Because then again, you just hate Apple.

Apple is the most valuable public company in the world. They have plenty of leverage to force their suppliers to treat workers better. Apple just chooses not to use it to the degree they could. It is laughable to compare the market power of an enormous multinational that frequently buys out factories' entire production capacity, to some random middleman who sells branded cups and pencils.

I don't hate Apple.

I just don't see why they shouldn't be held accountable to universally accepted principles of basic human decency.

They are. They are held to higher standards than any of their conpetitors.

That doesn't mean these standards are sufficient.

> They are. They are held to higher standards than any of their conpetitors.

Are they, though?

I don't see people claiming that "crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms" is totally fine if the plant makes Samsung or off-brand smartphones. What I'm seeing is a luxury brand on the defensive because their customer base learned that the workers making Apple's luxury products not only have been enduring "crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms" but also tainted food that causes mass health issues.

What really boggles the mind is that these sub-human working conditions seem to cause downtime in their plants, which ultimately means it costs them money. But somehow even that is not enough to convince them to treat workers as if they are human beings.

> But somehow even that is not enough to convince them to treat workers as if they are human beings.

As has been said many times in this thread. It’s not Apple’s factory. Apple does have much higher standards than this, and has a program of enforcement. The problem is that inspections are often faked.

> As has been said many times in this thread. It’s not Apple’s factory. Apple does have much higher standards than this, and has a program of enforcement.

That makes no sense. I mean, all you need to do to check if the factory subjects workers to subhuman conditions is send someone from Apple there, look around, and ask a few questions to random employees.

And also, are you really trying to argue that Apple is able to verify and guarantee that their luxury consumer electronics products leave the plant meeting tight quality control requirements but somehow it's impossible to ensure that the same employees who met those quality control specs will have worm-free meals?

> I mean, all you need to do to check if the factory subjects workers to subhuman conditions is send someone from Apple there, look around, and ask a few questions to random employees.

All the factory has to do is clean things up for the inspection and make sure the employees know they’ll be fired for speaking up.

Also, consider that these conditions existed in only some of the dormitories. To find them they would have needed to inspect them all.

As someone that has worked with Chinese production enough to for it to give me grey (each order in the many-millions of pieces) - the factories do this behind the backs of the company and they're pretty good at evading detection, and yes they know it's wrong.

For example any scheduled inspection by Apple would be met with a safe and well running facility - and the moment they leave it all returns back to normal. Apple, like other companies, do random inspections - and that's when you find all of the infractions, but these companies are pretty clued in to when a random inspection might occur since there are telltale signs for that (the factories will also pay off anyone they need in order to get advance notice, e.g drivers, airport staff, hotels you name it.)

So it's a constant battle of trying to uncover and rectify the supplier problems. As a simple anecdote for the production staff to have normal working hours we would need to pay them as if they worked an 18 hour day on the requirement that they used the rest of the day for rest and leisure - because otherwise they'd just go to other factories to get in additional hours. The workers are not there for a good time, they're there for the cash.

Despite the Apple hate on HN (HN has a big thing for double-standards), Apple do a very good job about this and unlike many companies Apple publish their own dirty laundry in their supplier responsibility report. As someone rightly noted earlier: You hear about the Apple ones, you barely hear anything from non-American companies, but let me assure you - their conditions are far worse and in many cases simply dangerous and not suitable for humans.1

1. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2018/11/23/samsung-electro...

If you can not trust your suppliers then why do you continue to do business with them?

How many times has Foxconn been in the news for the same sort of issues? Is Apple not aware of that? Is Apple unable to find a supplier who can meet their needs?

You say that Apple does a good job, they publish reports and so on. I say bullshit. Apple accepts the status quo and does the bare minimum to make people think they care. Same as Nike and everyone else.

Sure, you don't get the same reports from some companies. That just means that they are not trying to blow as much smoke up your ass.

If Apple or anyone else was serious about doing something they would. In 2007, the tech press was all aglow with the wonder that Apple could command a production change a month before shipping https://www.cnet.com/news/a-tale-of-apple-the-iphone-and-ove...

Now poor Apple is helpless and at the mercy of their suppliers?

You want to hear a solution? Apple, Microsoft, Samsung and who ever start a joint venture assembly. They choose and hire the management. They have representatives at the factory.

The reason they do not is because they do not want to pay what it costs to be done right. If they wanted to, they could. They are smart and powerful people, any excuses are just bullshit.

I mean I could go through this bit by bit and provide good rationales for why things are the way they are, cite my own examples and provide links to industry whitepapers and even detail the numerous ways that such companies do indeed improve their supply chain (even how they do quite a bit of their own assembly as you casually solve major problems with little more than 5 seconds of thought)... but I've learnt that certain figures on HN are not interested in resolving the real issue (nor do they really care) and the facts are disinteresting to such people because you could have looked up plenty of counter-statements to what you've stated there.

No, it's the drama you want, and you want it to be loud and about specific brands that you don't personally like.

That's why I don't bother.

Doesn't Apple choose these companies based on lowering cost and having leverage over them.

So does that leverage and squeezing not ultimately impact these laborer's at the bottom of the food chain

Is Apple, like all companies that outsource ultimately aware of this but sees it as necessary to their profit margin, Yes.

Would any other company in Apple's position do the same, almost certainly.

> It is 100 percent Apple's responsibility to guarantee safe and humane working conditions for all workers at every level in its supply chain.

You're advocating a particular ethical framework, but I'm not sure what the justification is. I'd be interested in hearing an argument for why others should adopt it.

> You're advocating a particular ethical framework

Treating human beings decently is the ethical point here

Why should others adopt it? For me it is enough to treat others decently, and by that I can only use my own standards (and I do not have a flush toilet in my house, but there is running water to wash with).

But perhaps some people need another reason. Perhaps they should ask their priest?

Perhaps they should consider how they wish to be treated themselves, and what goes around comes around.

But for me: Just be decent. Remember the Golden Rule: Do not be a dick

Well if India the country cant even bother to inspect its own factories (in many countries we dont bemoan the american overlord to please stop our people from beating each other: we just inspect ourselves), nothing will change.

The problem is Indian or Chinese people valuing each other so low they do that to each other. The american overlord, they tell him yes yes and will print all the pretty pictures and stamped documents he required. So Apple, Foxconn, I dont think we should even care, they dabble in a specific environment: what is India doing for its taxpayers ?

> India the country cant even bother to inspect its own factories

That is unfair.

The USA in the nineteenth century had similar problems, as did England.

It is a side effect of rapid economic development, methinks. Time will tell but I think working conditions will improve.

They are not that flash in England or the USA either

You're right - but it's not really unfair though: I agree with the people who complained in France of these problems 100 years ago too and I think asking what the state is doing is how you get the state to maybe do something.

Saying "it's the cost of modernizing" may risk making people believe it's the cost of modernizing, rather than a side effect to quickly correct so you have a rise of the middle class criss-crossing the rise of the factories, rather than the explosion of a slave caste and no one in the domestic market able to buy the output of the production. I think for instance it's not normal India trails China, it's probably explainable by many facts, but it's still nearly as shocking as China trailing France.

What is the state doing ffs.

I think you can make a case that the responsibility is a metaphorical chain. If you do something, eg make a phone through a complex chain, you need to make sure all the parts of your system are ethical: dangers are minimized, people have sensible working conditions, etc. If you could just stop being responsible as soon as you sign a contract with a subcontractor, it would be very easy to avoid any responsibility. Simply set up everything as another company, or get real subcontractors. Then hide behind "but I told him to treat everyone fairly, see this contract?"

In addition the subcontractor could do the same, and nobody would have to check any of the unpleasant stuff. The brand name could just hide behind people who hide behind non-brands (who really shops at Foxxconn?).

The fact is in the modern world we have these things called brands that people associate with positive or negative vibes, and we use them because we really don't have enough attention to dig deeply. The brand is an investment into making a positive vibe that hopefully is a true signal. If it's not, people are misled and they end up buying things that they didn't want (though GDP doesn't suffer, that's another story).

The Golden Rule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

Combined with Apple's astronomical financial leverage and obvious capability to prevent situations like this from ever occurring again.

What's the role of the government of India in this?

It is actually 100 percent the consumer's responsibility to guarantee that they are using only things made under safe conditions.

For instance, if the packets you sent over the Internet to post your comment traveled over equipment manufactured in unsafe conditions, you are acting unethically.

The manufacturer has infinitely more visibility into, and leverage over the supply chain than the customer.

That's where this attempt to flip responsibility fails.

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