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from the labor-law-from-the-18th-century dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
An investigation by China Labor Watch has found Foxconn's Apple 11 factory is "routinely" and "repeatedly" breaking Chinese labour laws which limit employment of temporary staff.
The exhaustive investigation saw several people working in the factory to uncover abuses, with one individual placed there for more than four years.
The report found a big increase in Foxconn's use of dispatch workers – short-term staff hired during peak season – since 2016. Some of these are university and secondary school students forced to work overtime or risk losing qualifications – as detailed in a previous report.
Dispatch workers are hired via third-party companies. These staffers are promised bonuses for signing up to make iPhones, but this money is often not paid, the report stated.
Chinese law restricts dispatch workers to 10 per cent of total staff and their overtime is meant to be limited to 36 hours a month. Both of these limits are being ignored by Foxconn, according to the report, with dispatch staff making up as much as 50 per cent of total staff at peak times. Dispatch workers are paid more than permanent staff but have far fewer rights and are dismissed when peak demand is over. Hiring temporary staff means Foxconn does not have to increase wages across the board in order to attract more staff.
Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, said: "Apple and Foxconn know that the issue with dispatch workers is in violation of labor laws, but because it is profitable to hire dispatch workers, they haven't addressed the issue. They have allowed these violations to continue over the years."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday September 13 2019, @06:07AM (2 children)
in order to get you your phone at that price, humans had to be abused beyond what chinese labor law allows. China is a totalitarian system, everyone there is a slave but a handful of people.
Effectively then the system you are a part of, with that phone, is a slavery system.
Dont let the borders, nationalities, companies and marketing jargon confuse you. Danaerys targaryian would kill you as one of the slavers, dont kid yourself.
If you pay in any way for an iphone, you are in a moral web with people who operate companies such that they need to put netting outside the buildings because there are too many suicides. And that they would rather pay for this large engineering effort than actually change anything in the way they treat the human beings that are being driven to utter despair.
These are your indirect business associates, you help them have all of the nicest things in the world and flaunt this as fashion.
Good luck with that if you ever have to weigh your heart against a feather.
thesesystemsarefailing.net (full disclosure i have used iphones and i regret it, i would like to apologize to the workers in china now that I understand better, by writing this and other things I hope to mitigate my moral responsibilty)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Lester on Friday September 13 2019, @03:54PM (1 child)
In order to get you your phone, your lithium batteries, your PC, your 42" TV, your Laptop, your router, your sugar, your Nike trainers, your clothes, your coffee, your ... (you name it) at that price, humans must be abused in countries where everyone there is a slave but a handful of people.
Probably that investigation has a lot to do with the commercial war with USA. Foxconn is Taiwanese Company, not a Chinese company that is the main provider of Apple, Amazon and other USA companies.
Do not deceive yourself. Western countries stand on pile human abuse, not a few products, but our whole world.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Saturday September 14 2019, @06:04AM
I can't argue with this.
Thank you for saying it. It isn't just iphones. But it is especially iphones.
If you do not spend effort understanding where the things you buy and use come from, you are gambling with your conscience.
You are more culpable if you profit, remain willfully ignorant, spend big $, are ostentatious and other things like that.
I try to avoid those things and be loud in defense of the powerless, on my site there is a hand written letter found in a chinese product describing slavelike torture conditions, and stating that falun gong believers are treated basically like animals. It's on one of the meme collections.