Applenomics & Chinese Labor: The American Citizens’ Culpability
Patrick Edmonds
Courtesy of Planet VI own an iphone, I use my iphone, I love my iphone. I listen to music on it. Text friends funny messages with it. Look up my Yahoo Fantasy Football scores with it. And call people on occasion with it. When I leave my apartment, I check for it before all else, including my keys and wallet. And while the phone and its applications are arguably excessive and frivolous, and I have felt a bit materialistic for having one, I’ve never felt guilty about owning it, and realistically, why should I? It’s just a phone. An incredibly advanced, technologically unparalleled, brilliantly trendy phone. How bad could owning one really be?
That’s the question, amongst others, that Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele subtly explore in their latest contribution to The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Currents section. The two renowned journalists are at it again and are going after the most beloved and successful American company, still reeling from the loss of its founder and American genius, Steve Jobs. That’s right, Bartlett and Steele’s latest edition attacks the manufacturing, trade, and economic policies of America’s wealthiest and ubiquitous company, Apple. Apple’s American job disaster seeks to expose the damaging effects of outsourcing on America’s economy and workforce. However, the article and its authors seem equally concerned about the struggles of our Chinese foreign counterparts as they are for the plight of the American laborer. Yet what the article seems reticent to pursue is the American citizens’ own responsibility in this ugly quagmire of wealth, employment, and exploitation.
America has an addiction, and it’s apparently affordable toys and gadgets that we pretend are essentials and utilities. Our ipods, iphones, and ipads and their competitors are now what we consider must haves. They are our contacts for work and life with numbers and emails, our memories with pictures and videos, and our escape from both with movies, music, and games. Socially speaking, there is no turning back. This is what we’ve become, for better (I hope) or worse, only time will tell. The questions of such obsessions and dependence are wrought thin with clichés of allusions to Orwellian and Bradburian nightmares. But once we weave through all of the catastrophic potentials, where are we with the pragmatic realities?
According to the article, America’s current technological and Apple mania is wreaking havoc both at home and overseas. Here, in America in the 90s, Apple established two home bases for their manufacturing. One in Elk Grove, California and another in Fountain, Colorado. Between the two manufacturing plants, over 15,000 American jobs were provided, paying solid wages of $50,000-80,000 year with benefits. They were just the types of jobs American politicians are always promising around the corner, the ones the rest of America realizes it so sorely needs. Jobs for non-college educated people with an industrious work ethic and a desire to move up the ranks. The kind of jobs that can support a family of four and offer people a new life. The kind of jobs that once made this country great. Unfortunately though, Apple decided to shut down production of these factories, layoff all of its employees, and send all its manufacturing work overseas to China, like many of its competitors.
The articles proceeds to capture the tale of Bill Stamp, a former supervisor at the Fountain, Colorado plant who after losing his job, lost his home and was then unemployed for three years. Eventually Bill found work, part-time. In his mid-50s, there is no retirement in sight and no prospects of a better career either. However, Bill’s troubles are nothing compared to the sad state of affairs for the employees in China who now perform his duties.
Bartlett and Steele’s piece moves on to reveal the horrific collateral damage of America’s materialistic demands in the working conditions of the average, ground-level Chinese manufacturer. Usually a young peasant, the average employee in China, who doesn’t work directly for Apple (Apple outsources the work to Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest manufacturer of technological goods), endure 10-12 hour work days, often seven days a week. Their average pay is a little over a dollar an hour, with no overtime. They are not allowed to speak to other employees and usually live on site in incredibly cramped dormitories. Close to two dozen employees of Apple plants have committed suicide in recent years. The suicides became so bad that the companies responded rapidly by surrounding the dormitories with nets to catch jumpers, but from all reports, working conditions haven’t changed.
For all of this seeming hardship- thousands of laid off and most likely still unemployed American employees, and thousands more brutally treated, underprivileged Chinese employees, both with feelings of despair, depression, and hopelessness- what good has been achieved? Well, Apple was for at least one day the wealthiest company in the world, its stock worth $382 Billion. Also, they have created thousands of customer service stores, providing tens of thousands of retail jobs. Better yet, we, the average American citizens are able to afford reasonably priced Apple products. $300 iPhones. $1000 iPads. $2000 iMacs. Some speculate that if Apple actually kept those factories in America then we would pay double, even triple what we currently pay for Apple’s products. It's a scary thought.
I have no illusions about the effects of my daily lifestyle choices and their impact on others. I know that when I buy a pair of sneakers, they are probably made in Brazil in a sweatshop. I know that when I buy a breakfast sandwich, the eggs and meat probably come from a factory farm that inhumanely treats the animals and wreaks havoc on the environment. I continue to because I reason to myself that it’s not my fault, that everyone else does, and I am not the one who makes these decisions, nor am I the one who can change anything. It’s easier, and now popular, to blame the corporate boogeymen for all that’s wrong in the world. But at the end of the day, I am the one holding the phone, and now I’m not so sure I want to be anymore.
Reader Comments (1)
A great piece as we start buying for Christmas. When we outsource jobs, we outsource more than our livelihoods, but we lose a standard of living and justice for workers in many places of the world. I often think that being American and buying foreign made goods in underdeveloped nations because they are cheap is our greatest failure as a nation.
We may be living up to the reputation that we are selfish consumers who continue to act immoral for our impulse desires. I do not think the price of Apple goods have anything to do with manufacturing. They set the price where they think Americans will pay for. They lower it if they are wrong. The prices may be higher, but slightly, and the quality would be even better.
A great lunch and really good link to the article.