iPod Sweatshops. Say it ain't so.

Reality is that once yo go the sub contracting route, especially outside the country, you lose control of the manufacturing environment.

This isn't restricted to Apple, most computer and electronics manufacturers don't have factories anymore, they contract out to a manufacturer in a low labour cost country. They can make these contractors sign all the agreements they want, but the only way to ensure the agreements are bing complied with is through inspections.

James

Last time I saw one of these write ups the journo had it half right. These contractors get many contracts and jobs and we could well be looking at activities related to another contract. But we need to keep in mind a few things:

1. US$50 in China is about equivalent in spending power to about US$2,000 in LA. This pay rate is high for many parts of China and some other asian countries.

2. Most Chinese businesses are little more than government operation and what passess for corporate accomodation is old army barracks buildings.

3. Many unskilled and semi-skilled Chinese work two full jobs, often two full-time jobs to earn more and help fill in the time.

Just what are these people amking for the iPod anyway, it may be nothing more than a carry case. The article just said parts for the iPod, it may even be the bloody cardboard box it goes in.

have you tired to buy anything that was NOT made in China? A pair of shoes, electronics, a frying pan, a t-shirt, underwear? I mean come on, we don't make anything in America anymore. Why else would companies go to China to have their products made? They go there because they can pay the workers little to nothing and then charge outrages prices that guarantee them a big profit. So why not Apple, everyone else is doing it?

Everybody is in agreement here.

A long time ago US Corporations (which are now International
Corporations) decided to move manufacturing to wherever it
would be cheapest. At one time it was cheaper to manufacture in
Japan. When that got too expensive there they moved to Korea
and Taiwan. Now it's China's turn.

The two main problems are:
1. We are totally dependent on cheap consumer products. You
can buy a decent DVD player from a name brand for $50 or a 1
GB USB flash for $20. Can you imagine what these devices would
cost if they were made here. The economy would fall apart
because they average person wouldn't be able to afford it.
2. All the cheap sources of labor eventually become more
expensive as the influx of money raises the living standards of
the laborers. So it seems to me that eventually they will run out
of sources. What will happen then?

Sorry to be a bummer but the most frightening thing in the last
year was IBM's sale of their ThinkPad /Laptop business to a
Chinese company. In the past we at least held high ground when
it came to controlling the technology. Now they sold that too.

I don't think that many i pod owners really worry about something like this. In order to sell their product at the price that they do, they have to limit the production costs. If the i pod was made in America, the cost would be $600 rather than $300. There would sure be a lot fewer people who owned i pods then. I wonder who in American would want to work on the fabrication of an i pod. Selling millions of them a month takes a lot of workers.

I read the original story in The Mail on Sunday, which has a supplement The Financial Mail, here in the UK.

The story included a picture of one of the dormitory's, and descriptions of working conditions and practices on the Foxconn campus.

The Mail is a well regarded newspaper and you can guarantee most (if not all) of the story is true.

The bottom line is, would you be prepared to pay perhaps three or four times the price, to have it locally produced? You may say yes, but the vast majority will say no!