If you own an iPhone, I'm pretty sure you and your phone have become inseparable. The applications have no doubt mesmerized you with the speed at which you can connect to media, music and information. Some apps can assist you in tripling your rate of productivity in your business or on your job. It is truly a technological masterpiece.
Apple, inventor of the iPhone was co-founded by Steve Jobs who died an American icon, revered for his innovative mind and business savvy which made him a billionaire. And yet this revolutionary smart phone is being built on the backs of Chinese neo-slaves. I say neo-slaves because if you read the description of the authoritarian system under which these phones are produced, the workers have no rights at all. It is truly shocking and shameful that we are turning a blind eye to what is happening to China's labor force. They are woefully underpaid and overworked and ill fed. It symbolizes the ugly underbelly of the American appetite for material things.
The New York Times has done a brilliant and revealing exposé on Apple and its philosophy concerning the American labor force: "Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products." When Apple was faced with a last minute change to the design of the iphone weeks ahead of its release, where did they turn?
Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. 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,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”
http://www.nytimes.com/...
If these are the working conditions under which the wealthy corporations expect their workers to perform, what lessons should Americans learn as the economy buckles under the weight of an 8.5% unemployment rate. Is neo-slavery the way of the future for the world's labor force? Why are Americans prepared to pay astronomical prices for goods produced overseas under these conditions, continuing to fatten the coffers of the one percent while we amass credit card and consumer loan debt? Is this economy based on American consumerism, debt and Chinese industrialism sustainable over the long haul? How long can Americans continue to prop up the Chinese industrial revolution, watching jobs slip away while the deficit explodes?
What would happen if the American consumer revolts and refuses to buy goods that Chinese workers produce? Would this send a message to the Wall Street that we are not prepared to underwrite China's golden age? Would this be too little, too late or just a pipe dream?
Tue Jan 31, 2012 at 3:06 PM PT: Please sign this boycott petition at: http://www.change.org/...