The New York Times wrote about the human cost of Apple's iPad.
Among the other horrors that the article documented, one particularly stood out. Employees at a Chinese factory for Apple were at work polishing iPad screens, but owing to the tremendous demand for Apple products, weren't going fast enough. So the factory decided to "improve" productivity by replacing rubbing alcohol with n-hexane, which evaporated three times as fast. The catch: n-hexane is a toxic chemical that causes nerve damage and paralysis. In the race for greater productivity, safety was willfully abandoned.
More often than not, "increased" productivity is not the result of innovation but human cost. Want more iPad screens cleaned? Replace safe chemicals with hazardous ones that evaporate faster. Want a greater number of iPads per week? Make employees work back-to-back 12 hour shifts.
There would probably be more humane ways of getting the productivity Apple wants, if it gives suppliers a *little* more from it's hundreds-of-dollars-per-iPad profit. To quote from the article, “If you squeeze margins, you’re forcing them to cut safety.”
The folks speaking on behalf of Apple essentially shrugged off responsibility because according to them, customers care more about a new Apple product than worker safety in China. That's akin to saying responsibility for ending slavery in America lay with the consumers of south cotton, which was produced by slave labour.
If I was an Apple customer, I would certainly think twice before buying their products.
Among the other horrors that the article documented, one particularly stood out. Employees at a Chinese factory for Apple were at work polishing iPad screens, but owing to the tremendous demand for Apple products, weren't going fast enough. So the factory decided to "improve" productivity by replacing rubbing alcohol with n-hexane, which evaporated three times as fast. The catch: n-hexane is a toxic chemical that causes nerve damage and paralysis. In the race for greater productivity, safety was willfully abandoned.
More often than not, "increased" productivity is not the result of innovation but human cost. Want more iPad screens cleaned? Replace safe chemicals with hazardous ones that evaporate faster. Want a greater number of iPads per week? Make employees work back-to-back 12 hour shifts.
There would probably be more humane ways of getting the productivity Apple wants, if it gives suppliers a *little* more from it's hundreds-of-dollars-per-iPad profit. To quote from the article, “If you squeeze margins, you’re forcing them to cut safety.”
The folks speaking on behalf of Apple essentially shrugged off responsibility because according to them, customers care more about a new Apple product than worker safety in China. That's akin to saying responsibility for ending slavery in America lay with the consumers of south cotton, which was produced by slave labour.
If I was an Apple customer, I would certainly think twice before buying their products.
