iPod maker admits breaking Chinese labour laws

[meegbear]

APPLE COMPUTER is getting into a deep PR mess over the antics of one of its its Chinese partners.

After denying that it was running a sweatshop that would be familiar to Charles Dickens, Apple's Ipod manufacturer, Foxconn has finally admitted that it broken Chinese labour laws.

<snip>

Li Zong, a spokesperson from Foxconn, said the outfit had paid the workers according to the minimum salary standards of the Shenzhen local government. Apparently Foxconn thinks that paying your workers the minimum wage for working long hours makes everything ok.

Foxconn's PR then made life worse for Apple by saying that a team from the Cupertino based outfit had investigated its operations and given it the thumbs up.

<snip>

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32644

[ticapnews]

1. So they investigated themselves and determined everything was OK...

Thank God that will never be allowed to happen in this country...

[htuttle]

2. "breaking Chinese labour laws" -- that can't be easy to do!

It's got to be almost as hard as breaking US environmental laws nowdays -- You really have to try to break them.

[northzax]

4. or forget to make the appropriate payments

to the appropriate authorities.

[northzax]

3. China has labour laws?

who knew?

[Atman]

5. China has labor laws?!

What's that? You will labor for the state, or you're in violation of the law?

Who the fuck do Americans think they're kidding? We've got a giant slave labor camp over there, making all our cool shit for us, and we want to look the other way, blame Wal Mart, blame Apple, blame everybody but ourselves for putting up with this shit in the first place! If you're pissed about this, you can vote out your reps, you can write letters, you can boycott. But to what end? As long as there is a huge segment of the economy that prefers saving 27¢ on a case of Twinkies to having a healthy labor market, we're fucked anyway.

[w4rma]

7. I blame the folks who pushed to change the laws to make them what

they are today.

[redqueen]

10. This type of thing resumed with the beginning of the death of labor

under Regan... also, NAFTA, and the WTO.

Corporate takeover of the state is nearly complete, is it not?

Everyone should see "The Corporation".

[skids]

6. Their mistake...

...was not doing it in the Marianas Islands. It would probably have been easier to break both Chinese and U.S. labor laws by bringing their operation onto U.S. soil.

[havocmom]

11. Yeah, a small payment to Conrad Burns to change his vote

and you're in like Flynn.

[MidwestTransplant]

8. They paid laborers too much?

[Nomad559]

9. Images from Foxconn's iPod City

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1815

Placebo's thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1409312

:)