Human cost of building Apple products

[JayDeeHobbit]

A couple of weeks ago this thread was posted as well. 'Mass suicide' protest at Apple manufacturer Foxconn factory

I have a family member who is fairly high up in a multi-national. In the big-shot meetings what do you suppose they talk about? Building a better product? Creating jobs? Growing the company?

Nope... "How do we make bonus".

To "make bonus" means making the "maximum" bonus as often corporations have different levels of bonus depending on the profitability of your division. The "maximum" bonus could be double your yearly salary or more... much more. It is pure avarice that drives the corporations from the share holders down to senior management. They really don't want to know about the skeletons they build their company on so long as it doesn't impact their pocket book... sad.

When Chrisk says above "Buy North America" that could work. As long as they make more profit they don't care where something is made just s long as the bottom line is there. We would have to overcome our natural impulse as consumers as we tend to buy the item that is 10% cheaper and, of course, that item is 10% cheaper because the company manufactures it where they pay the least labor costs and have the least overhead concerning things like health and safety. Other countries in the world really need a union movement. Much as I dislike unions here in our country (where they have already accomplished much) their accomplishments now need to be exported to other countries.

[Silent_Avenger]

Originally Posted by chrisk

Buy stuff made in North America. Even if it is more expensive.

If its possible...

Yea if it's possible. There's basically nothing made in NA anymore and if it is it'll be made in mexico at nearly the same conditions so what's the point I'm surprised the economy in the states and canada hasn't completely collapsed yet. Greed will bring the doom of us all!

[geoc]

Here's a list of all the companies that uses Foxconn. If you want to boycott Apple products, boycott all of these as well:

• Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
• Amazon.com (United States)[27]
• Apple Inc. (United States)[28]
• ASRock (Taiwan)
• Asus (Taiwan)
• Barnes & Noble (United States)
• Cisco (United States)
• Dell (United States)
• EVGA Corporation (United States)
• Hewlett-Packard (United States)[29]
• Intel (United States)
• IBM (United States)
• Lenovo (China)
• Logitech (Switzerland)
• Microsoft (United States)
• MSI (Taiwan)
• Motorola (United States)
• Netgear (United States)
• Nintendo (Japan)
• Nokia (Finland)[28]
• Panasonic (Japan)
• Philips (Netherlands)
• Samsung (South Korea)[30]
• Sharp (Japan)
• Sony Ericsson (Japan/Sweden)[31]
• Toshiba (Japan)
• Vizio (United States)

Have fun!

Seriously, don't buy into sensationalist headlines, this has been a widespread problem in China, it's not only Foxconn.

Also, it's not only cheap labour that attracts so many business. The supply chain and logistics of China is so far ahead of North America, it's impossible to do the same thing here.

And this isn't even half the story, raw ores and materials from mining operations and purification plants in China that are used to make what we all use today is 100x worse than the factories.

[Silent_Avenger]

Haha with your list it's pretty much say bye bye to everything tech based. Now I'd like to see a list for comparison of all the companies that make anything tech based from start to finish here in NA.

[moocow]

Originally Posted by Silent_Avenger

Haha with your list it's pretty much say bye bye to everything tech based. Now I'd like to see a list for comparison of all the companies that make anything tech based from start to finish here in NA.

I think that would be close to zero. Don't forget this sort of stuff is happening in India, Vietinam, and other "cheap" labour countries. I recall some US tv show did an investigation report on clothing mfg in India. Sure they had the prescribed code of ethics nailed to the wall, but they also had black mfg plants that the customers didn't know about. Makes you wonder how many suppliers' plants these companies don't know about and can't "inspect".

[martin_metal_88]

What is nice is to see all those huma right defender using their Iphone or Ipad or whatever apple product. Good job...