Back in the day Apple used to manufacture its products in America. These days? Not so much. Turn over any Apple device and it reads: “Designed In California. Assembled in China.”
Those six words speak volumes as to how far American manufacturing and jobs, have fallen over the last three decades thanks to cheap labor and globalization.
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All of Apple’s products are assembled in China by FOXCONN, which employs close to one million workers. These workers receive no overtime pay, sleep in dormitories, receive, by American standards, less than minimum wage, have a high suicide rate, are sometimes as young as 13, and make about $100 a month.
So if we are to ask why these assembly jobs aren’t going to Americans, the answer is all of the above. There are no unions in China, there aren’t any child labor laws either.
So reading the below statement was surprising to say the least. In short it says Americans can’t handle the scale of Apple’s operation. But what it really say is American workers are too smart for Apple’s practices, which, if we look at them closely, would be illegal in America.
Via Hugh Pickens Via Slash Dot:
Today, almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year are manufactured overseas.
‘It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad,’ write Charles Duhig and Keith Bradsher. ‘Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have outpaced their American counterparts so much that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.’
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option and recount the time Apple redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, and then each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.
‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ says one Apple executive. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.’ Apple’s success has benefited the U.S. economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. But ultimately, Apple executives say curing unemployment is not Apple’s job. ‘We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.'”
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And there you have it: Only Chinese people can be herded into 12 hour shifts, lured by tea and biscuits, to make iPhones with no overtime pay or Unions who ask WTF.
Apple created 50 jobs in North Carolina when it unveiled its $1 billion server farm. Only 50 jobs!
SOURCE: Slash Dot
