Apple, one of the most successful technological companies in history, is under a lot of fire after an explosive new report was published by the New York Times detailing the company's disregard for safety standards among its suppliers in China.
The article, "Apple Accused of Ignoring Labor Abuses that Can Kill," details a long list of problems and labor violations at plants in China where iPads, iPhones, and other Apple products are manufactured. It also accuses Apple of largely ignoring these problems, while claiming their plants are highly regulated and held to strict ethical standards.
The report is highly extensive, with interviews and reports showing employees working 60+ hours a week, or more than 12 hours a day, six days a week in some cases. Employees often live in small, cramped dorm spaces and work with dangerous chemicals in rooms with little ventilation, the article also says.
The explanation for these violations is one we've heard a million times before: consumers want products fast and they want them cheap. In order to keep up with demand, both from consumers and from the Apple company, manufacturing factories cut corners to improve output. And Apple doesn't really demand a change.
"Apple says that when an audit reveals a violation, the company requires suppliers to address the problem within 90 days and make changes to prevent a recurrence. 'If a supplier is unwilling to change, we terminate our relationship,' the company says on its website.
"The seriousness of that threat, however, is unclear. Apple has found violations in hundreds of audits, but fewer than 15 suppliers have been terminated for transgressions since 2007, according to former Apple executives."
Big surprise. Apple's PR wheel is always running on high gear to give buyers a sense of well-being about their Chinese-made gadgets, but the truth isn't so rosy. It never is, as we've found time and time again through investigations into similar companies.
Twitter was very busy on Thursday when this article was first published, with lots of people commenting in horror on the report's assertions. Apple also expressed outrage, saying that it cares deeply about its workers and will continue investigating violations at its plants. Talk is still going on today about possible PR repercussions of the report, and there have been numerous follow-up articles on the backlash.
While Apple shares a lot of responsibility for properly monitoring its factories, its use of cheap labor and back-breaking work conditions is not entirely their fault. They may claim to do their best at overseeing the manufacturering process, and such egregious violations of fair labor standards may show that they are failing, but the truth is this: consumer demand fueling the production rate of new Apple products is unrealistic. No one can expect millions of new and improved iPhones and iPads every year to hit the market without manufacturers and plant workers bearing an unhealthy workload. It's not feasible and everyone knows it, yet we continue to act surprised and outraged when faced with reports of that reality.
Unfortunately a very pervasent cultural mentality has taken hold in our culture over the past century: a mentality that the customer is always right, and that the customer gets whatever they want, at whatever the cost.
It's a mentality I learned well while working for a department store for three years in high school, and that I reflected on often while living in France, a country where such thinking is not so prevalent. As Apple and other companies have continually bought in to that psychology, they have constantly competed to feed the consumer's demand for, as I said earlier, cheaper and faster products than ever.
No one dares to stand up and say "No, you don't get everything you want. Cheaper and faster products come at an inhuman cost, and we're not willing to pay that. Get over it." Instead they just give in, for the profit, and then everyone follows suit in order to remain competitive. Once you've given in a million times over, it's pretty hard to reverse course.
Consumers deserve blame for not caring about where or how their cheap products are made. But companies are also to blame for catering to that demand, even when doing so requires the services of $1-a-day, 12+ hours a day, sometimes child workers. I do hope this controversy continues, and I hope all the horrified readers realize they can't have it both ways.
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