As usual, there's always another side to the story. Why do you think these companies continue to be inundated with resumes and applicants?<p>A good read is Factory Girls by Leslie Chang. I went to listen to a talk she gave last year on her experience at Shenzhen. She made a comment that Shenzhen is a very tough place to live. The place is very industrial and polluted. But when she went to the hometown village of one of her friends (a factory worker) for several days during the Chinese New Year, she found herself missing Shenzhen because the conditions of Chinese countrysides were even worse.<p>This isn't t justify business practices of Apple, Foxconn, or other manufacturers, but it's important to remember that whether an environment is good or bad really depends on what we are benchmarking it with.
Should workers die so I can have a fish dinner? (Fishing is dangerous.) Should workers die so I can wipe my ass? (So is forestry.) Should workers die so I can charge my iPhone? (So is generating and transmitting power.) Should workers die so I can have a larger house? (As is construction.) Should workers die so I can drive to work? (Oh, and manufacturing.)<p>We live in an imperfect world. Everything is somewhat dangerous. People are - literally - dying while making every single product you have ever consumed or seen in the stores. To phrase your argument in absolutes is to reveal yourself as hopelessly naive.<p>There's a conversation to be had here, but it's probably going to be in the following form: "The fatal accident rate in factories supplying Apple is X per 100,000. I believe it should be Y, and I believe that because of specific reasons A, B, and C." And then we can discuss if X is really too high, and if Y is achievable, and maybe evaluate your reasons, and the likely outcome of trying to bring the rate from X to Y.<p>But the implication here is that the rate of fatal accidents per year should be zero, and that's ludicrous. Foxconn employs around a million people. How many people do <i>you</i> think have died there in the last year? (Please provide citations to government statistics or independent news articles.)<p>Meanwhile, the death rate for manufacturing workers in the UK is 1.1 per 100,000; 27 people died in fatal accidents in the UK in the manufacturing sector last year. So...what? "Workers should not have to die so Rolls Royce can build jet engines?" Are these workers being exploited? Should we be boycotting jet engines, air travel, and all products which have travelled by air? Or is, perhaps, a death rate of 1.1 per 100,000 actually an acceptable trade-off?
Far east countries do seem to be going through the same events that lead to the migration of the Department of Labor from statistical institution to enforcement institution.<p>The have similar weak laws like the Working Condition Service act that really do little to force change, but begin to change the mindset of workers. This beginning change of mindset will force real workplace safety regulation in the future, but even in the US it took over 40 years and was mostly because of a side effect from a shipping regulation change that expanded the scope of the DOL to enforce safety requirements on merchant ships. This small change was used as precedence for real regulation in 1970 with OSHA, which was very necessary, with numbers of workplace deaths in the near 15,000.<p>It will take time for the public will to be great enough to force real change, and it is hard regardless of your buying power to change cultural practices.
The n-hexane poisoning incident happened between October 2008 and July 2009, Apple's 2010 report on suppliers' labor practice (published feb 2011) disclosed this severe offense and Apple demanded Wintek to stop such practice and compensate affected workers.<p>Wintek failed to offer these disabled workers adequate monetary compensation and necessary medical aide. And Apple did not monitor Wintek's clean-up act close enough, just took the vendor's word for it. So later 2011 the conflict blew out into a full protest at the factory's gate.<p>Though Apple is one of Wintek's major clients, the Taiwan based company did not exclusively produce iPhone panels.
The people writing and promoting these stories are going to be really bummed out when they find out where wedding rings, light bulbs, clothing, toys, gasoline, oil, electricity, food and water come from.
I feel like the outrage against Foxconn and Apple (and others) is particularly heightened by the fact that we're talking about an iPhone, as opposed to a piece of industrial machinery, or even, say, a car, the production of which is probably as or more dangerous than the production of iPhones. You’re not going to see an article that says "Workers should not have to die so Toyota can build the Toyota Camry," although that is likely an equally valid claim.<p>The reality is that the construction of any product, even one as aesthetically sleek as the iPhone (or consumer technology in general), is dangerous and doubtlessly comes with human costs. If we're getting upset at this, why not use this to take issue with the production of other consumer products which, doubtlessly, are made just down the road from the iPhone?
Is someone actually dying due to Apple?<p>So far I have only heard about suicides but they do not seem to be above global averages.<p>The working conditions could probably be improved but I really don't know since all I read on the topic is sensationalistic.