In the latest twist on the London Mail On Sunday article accusing Apple of making IPods in sweatshops in China, Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that owns the "sweatshops" has pointed out that (1) they only have 160,000 employees world wide, while the Mail asserted that they had 200,000 people working in the "sweatshop" plant; (2) they do not even own a plant in Suzhou, where the Mail alleges their "sweatshop" is the worst; (3) the minimum wage in the Shenzhen Economic Enterprise Zone is $101 per month and that they are in full compliance despite the Mail’s allegations that employees in the zone make about half of that; (4) that the company "has been named by the local Shenzhen government as a role model among Taiwan-based investors in the southern Chinese city"; and (5) they are contemplating legal action against the Mail.
In the comments to my original post, I mentioned that an HP sweatshop inspector had recently looked at the same plant and found no cause for concern.
I return to my original point concerning the story, and wonder at the real agenda behind the story in the Mail.
Mark Graban says
I’m stepping back from “it’s a prison?” to withholding judgment. The Foxconn denial is yet another data point and they have as much incentive to spin a story as the Mail might have.
As for the HP inspector, everyone knows how easily it is to fool an outside inspector, whether it’s a customer, ISO-900x, or even your corporate VP who is visiting.
So the HP inspector saying “I saw nothing wrong” doesn’t mean no problems existed.
Mike says
For those outside the UK:
The Daily Mail / Sunday Mail is a tabloid ‘news’paper (it pains me to use the word news) hell bent on scaremongering and playing on peoples fears.
I would also describe it as nationalistic and xenophobic.
That doesn’t prove the story true or false but will hopefully shed some light on the quality of journalism you can expect from it.
I would not expect a balanced viewpoint!
Bill Waddell says
I appreciate the input Mike. I didn’t know that, but it sure smells like a tabloid to look at most of their stories.
There was a good article in Info World on the IPod allegations. Among other things, it said:
“The Mail spoke to staff at the Longhua plant, including an unnamed ‘security guard.’ In more than a decade as a reporter and editor, I’ve never interviewed or quoted a security guard in relation to the operations of a technology company.
The paper also said that ‘visitors from the outside world are not permitted.’ I suggest that the Mail reporters show up at a factory near their headquarters in London and see if they’re allowed in, without an appointment or other business purpose. They can then write that ‘visitors from the outside world are not permitted’ there either.”
The Info World article can be found at:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/20/79437_HNapplesweatshop_1.htmlsource=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/06/20/79437_HNapplesweatshop_1.html
Mark Graban says
I think the “visitors” thing was in the context of employees not being able to have visitors at their group dormitories.
Bill Waddell says
Mark,
I agree – that is what the Mail article was suggesting. The critic at Info World’s point was the shoddy journalism. The Mail reporter talked to a security guard and two employees. At least that is all he chose to cite. Whether Foxconn has 100,000, or 160,000 or 200,000 employees – all three numbers have been bandied around – 3 is a pretty pathetic sample. You can find three uninformed or disgruntled people in just about any organization.
There was no interview with Foxconn management, no digging into company records, no data or interviews with the local regulatory compliance folks, no interview or data from other companies that outsource to Foxconn – in short, no serious journalistic effort.
It is so lacking in fundamental journalistic method, the Info World writer suggests that the Mail reporter may not have been in China at all, but had the story fed to him by some group with a political/social agenda with which the Mail sympathizes.