Henry Blodget’s up to his usual tricks on Business Insider, giving Apple a kicking. This time, it’s in the snappily titled Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour, with the less-than-subtle article URL of ‘apple-child-labor-2012-1’. Presumably the ‘-1’ suggests there’s an exciting sequel on the way in a few months.
The article talks about Apple kit like iPhones and iPads being manufactured in China, by people who “in some cases, have never even seen them,” and with “labor practices that would be illegal in the United States”. It talks about underage workers, removed when inspections occur, cramped dormitory conditions, the illegality of unions, workers being hurt by toxins and mega-carpal-tunnel, and so on.
Blodget does at least offer a little balance:
Importantly, Shenzhen’s factories, as hellish as they are, have been a boon to the people of China. Liberal economist Paul Krugman says so. NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says so. Kristof’s wife’s ancestors are from a village near Shenzhen. So he knows of what he speaks. The “grimness” of the factories, Kristof says, is actually better than the “grimness” of the rice paddies.
So, looked at that way, Apple is helping funnel money from rich American and European consumers to poor workers in China. Without Foxconn and other assembly plants, Chinese workers might still be working in rice paddies, making $50 a month instead of $250 a month
But then he reverts to Blodget Standard Mode:
But, of course, the reason Apple assembles iPhones and iPads in China instead of America, is that assembling them here or Europe would cost much, much more — even with shipping and transportation. And it would cost much, much more because, in the United States and Europe, we have established minimum acceptable standards for the treatment and pay of workers like those who build the iPhones and iPads.
There’s of course nothing untrue about all this, and those of us fortunate to live in relatively rich countries rarely take the time to think who made our expensive Apple kit. But Blodget displays a remarkable lack of context in his article, and the sharp focus on Apple is typical of articles closer to internet trolling. Not only does he conveniently ignore Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent email about improving working conditions and terminating suppliers that don’t live up to “Apple’s strict code of conduct”, but he barely touches on the fact that most smartphones, literal tons of electronics, and plenty of other goods (such as the cheap clothes people buy in many US and European chains) are manufactured in similar conditions.
But this is all about Apple. And here’s why:
If Apple decided to build iPhones and iPads for Americans using American labor rules, two things would likely happen: The prices of iPhones and iPads would go up [and] Apple’s profit margins would go down. Neither of those things would be good for American consumers or Apple shareholders. But they might not be all that awful, either. Unlike some electronics manufacturers, Apple’s profit margins are so high that they could go down a lot and still be high. And some Americans would presumably feel better about loving their iPhones and iPads if they knew that the products had been built using American labor rules.
Some Americans would feel better about that, but plenty would stop buying Apple kit if it wasn’t remotely competitive. And just because Apple’s making a profit, it should switch to the US, argues Blodget, but, what, its rivals should continue using Chinese labour? (They obviously would, too, because they’d finally be able to compete on price, which wouldn’t be the case if they too moved manufacturing to the US or Europe.) Also, what do the Chinese workers feel about this? They clearly don’t have the working conditions I’d like for myself, but if Apple pulled out of China, would they really be better off? Or would these people consider that an opportunity taken away from them?
This is a complex issue that’s far beyond ‘Apple is an evil, profit-hungry corporate giant’, and pundits and analysts should do better to recognise this, rather than churning out the same old word-sticks to belt Apple with. Also, you can bet that if Apple did switch manufacturing to the US and unveiled an iPad 3 at the less-than-enticing low-end price-point of $1000, Blodget would be first to his keyboard, banging on about how stupid the company was and how it was doomed. Again.