Gadgetory

not as upset though as the New York Times like six-page article seven page article this is huge on conditions inside Foxconn and that and basically a larger story about the conditions around building consumer electronics which has been this like bubbling up thing for a long time but this is this is an upsetting read and I'm fairly important I think you guys should all check this out it addresses specifically in this article it talks about apples dealings with manufacturers like Foxconn and suppliers and how they've dealt with the conditions inside of there now they do point out and we all know that Foxconn does supply products final goods for a variety of companies like HP lenovo IBM but this is kind of the focus on this specifically with Apple is we've heard about you know how there was that explosion I think maybe somewhere around four to five months ago and one of their factories on where four people died but also just the overall trend of how much are they really doing to change and make improvements because you have here on one side apple just reported their earnings and if you know or read those they were off the charts it was forty three billion dollars in revenue 13 billion net revenue record sales for iPads macs and iphones all right so you see these numbers and that Wall Street is just blown away by them but there's a cost that's involved in this and this is the human cost in these products how hard are they working these people what are their living conditions really like in this article the New York Times goes on in like we said it's a long six-page article they talk about how Apple was once it was brought to their attention Apple was one of the first companies that said okay we're gonna do audits of these suppliers and factories and talk about and point out where they have violations whether it's underage workers people working over 60 hours a week six or seven days in a row how long are their shifts so Apple has tried to send out reports of suppliers and companies that are violating these policies the prominent even at that though right right the problem is although they are mark you know mentioning these they have in their contract apple says they have the right to terminate their contract agreeing it with any supplier that violates these policies well the ratio of actual suppliers they've terminated versus the violations across the board is its Terrace is there there's no parody they said they terminated maybe 17 people all of the contracts remain in place and these are audits by the way that have been happening in some form since 2005 they got a lot more serious in 2007 but a lot you know this article quotes several former apple executives as saying look if we wanted this stuff to stop it would stop there finding violations every single year in the audits including dozens as many as 70 in one case what they call core violations which are violations that involve hiring underage workers and improperly disposing of toxic waste forcing people to work in patently unsafe conditions and it's sort of like they just write a story about it here but the problems don't go away and its really I mean certainly the times takes care to point out that this is an industry-wide issue but it does sound like other supply other companies HP Dell Lenovo do a better job in some cases of terminating those contracts but Apple has created such a cycle of constant releases and they've created such a consumer expectation and they squeeze squeeze their margins so intensely that's always been their way that right that's always been their way it's been the way and so there I mean there are several experts quoted in this article saying let's be realistic there's no way that Apple is going to terminate a contract with Foxconn yeah that is not going to happen and there's no way that Foxconn or any other apple supplier has incentive to treat their consumers well because they have to cut costs at every single corner and here's another thing we talked about apples secrecy as a company and one of the issues that these reports have shown is that Apple named these factories and suppliers but not where they're located because of the level of secrecy when these suppliers signed agreements if your if your supplier in China and all of a sudden you're like wow we're making parts for Apple we're going to have this huge contract and you sign a confidentiality agreement that says you can't reveal that Apple's when your partners and the reports apple doesn't reveal where your located because the secrecy you you that culture of secrecy is going to permeate this and also we won't we don't know everything that's really happening at these factories you can't even find all of these factories and know who's doing what and because of that culture of secrecy that's that's another that's another reason why it's very hard to shed light on this and that's not a good thing that's a horrible thing and honestly when I think the most enraging quote of all to me in the story was someone who said consumers demand new products every year that was such horse crap like no they don't right marketing and a constant release cycle has convinced consumers that they can expect these products every year but let's it that is solely so that companies can make money it's not like I'm sitting here going like if I don't have any iphone every year I will just die I will just not make it I mean that's you know that is it was something that has been conditioned and so that's a cart before the horse kind of argument and the fact that Apple is sitting on an unbelievable cache of money that they made 13 billion dollars for fraud revenue my friend that was the pure profit part of their earnings the fact that they can't spend my end and by many accounts in this story they have been warned very specifically about safety issues and violations and not responded in fact they say two weeks before the foxconn explosion a report was sent to Apple warning of unsafe conditions and according to almost all of these reports apple just did not respond yeah so the takeaway of this is that a as you as a consumer do you really care about the device because we've seen how in the past sweatshops with a you know nike and gap in other clothing industries people have made noise and protested against these companies for their practices are we as a collective group we need to do the same thing with these tech companies and hold them accountable because I'm sorry I don't want to know that someone died potentially died at the hands of creating my phone that's ridiculous yeah it's it's it's ridiculous so it's really up to us to start realizing that hey this thing that we have isn't as important as these conditions that we care about and you know Foxconn has some factories here in the US but one of the other challenges that obviously the laws and what's morally acceptable in one country for workers rights is different than what's here in the US but it doesn't mean that we have to we should overlook it mm-hmm absol so and to micro and who's asking in the chat room why's it why are we only talking about Apple we mentioned earlier that HP Lenovo many other electronic companies do business with Foxconn none of them do business on the scale of Apple and none of them make as much money off of the off of these business practices I mean somebody in the chat room just pointed out Curtis be it was the fourth best profit report this fourth quarter thing of all time they're it they're basically up there with the oil companies in terms of pure profit they have the muscle and the market power to make a huge difference here they've known about these problems for years and they haven't done anything about it they're like the McDonald's right like when McDonald said ok we're going to stop but they McDonald's had a huge impact on the beef industry and the way that cows were being treated basically because they said ok due to market pressure we don't want to you know be have things be as inhumane as they have been apples McDonald's in this situation and they need to be the ones to do something about here's the way to look at this realistically if if let's say thirty to forty percent of all iphones kid that came out of these factories were defective Apple would do something yes to stop them from being defective whatever those procedures or conditions are so Apple should rely like if that's what's happening with their phones at how they rack they need to react the same way with the conditions for these workers yeah you know when the first issues were brought up about workers being underpaid and overworked I remember Apple went and did an audit and they gave a raise a general raised to some of the workers but that doesn't address the conditions right the systemic problems that are happening over in these factories so really if Apple wants to stand tall and look like the good guy within the next six months to you I mean I don't know I hope they addresses because Tim Cook his history he his genius or his one of his strengths was dealing with the supply chain right the efficiencies of it the margins so he knows what's going on it's really not really name two because in some ways Tim Cook is coming out is the good guy right like he he restored charitable giving matching at apple or introduced it for the first time something that Steve Jobs resisted he is now giving Apple employees a big discount on on buying their own products like you know he in some way seems like this really great guy but he is the guy who set up these manufacturing arrangements it's on him like it's actually on him personally I think in a lot of cases to take care of this to deal with this and I think that it's and that's why we're talking spending so much time talking about it because it is really important like Brian pointed out the consumer can have a big difference here you and interests and there and we there needs to be outcry about this it's not acceptable for people to die for your iphone which is not so I i I've got to imagine with this long article that's going to get a lot of play that we're going to hear something you know in the near future from Apple right they're not going to just like sweep this one under the rug so totally and we're not either