Cheap Slaves of Deflation

Speaking of slaves, how about the countless millions of people who toil in sweatshops?

With a labor force of 1.2 million people, Foxconn is China’s largest private employer and biggest exporter. Through contracts with Apple, Motorola, Nokia, Hewlett Packard, Dell and Sony, Foxconn makes the computers, phones, laptops and printers that we use every day.

In Foxconn’s highest-paying factories, located in China’s coastal cities, workers earn just $1.18 an hour, and that only after a recent 30 percent increase in wages.

Foxconn is notorious for having a very high rate of suicides among its slaves. Most of the people who kill themselves are in their late teens to early twenties. Suicide notes, published in the Chinese press, tragically underscore the workers’ youthfulness. “I like drawing. I like a girl with the name last Ye,” wrote 19-year old Li Hai. Li also apologized to his family, promising to return in his next lifetime to help his father attain a better life.

Chinese slaves live in factory dorms with roommates who work different shifts and speak different dialects of Chinese. (When they kill themselves, they usually do so by jumping from dorm windows.) Differences in schedules and languages prevent workers from forming close relationships. This is intentional, since isolation makes for more submissive slaves. Foxconn does everything it can to minimize social interaction. Talking and stretching are forbidden on the assembly line. Clocking in five minutes late may result in the loss of half a day’s wages. Bathroom use is limited to 10 minutes, which is strictly enforced by an electronic key card. Most work involves standing while performing small, repetitive motions. When slaves clock out, they are frisked for industrial espionage. In 2009, engineer Sun Danyong committed suicide after management accused him of stealing an iPhone prototype. His suicide note suggests that he was beaten and harassed by Foxconn guards. 

Since the slaves are all strangers to each other, they have no one to talk to. They cannot vent their anguish. And it is illegal for slaves to organize outside of China’s state-run unions.

Because of the popularity of devices like iPads and iPhones, slaves toil 80 hours a month in overtime, exceeding China’s legal cap of 36 hours. Overtime means 12-16 hours of continuous standing.

Sweatshops are inevitable when owners don’t share their wealth with their slaves. At least a third of the money we spend on a new phone or computer goes directly into the pocket of the retailer. Apple makes even more, averaging a 60 percent profit margin on its products.

Most production costs go to materials, like screens and chips. Only a fraction goes to workers. Take the iPad, for example, which is the sole item produced at Foxconn’s 100,000-worker factory in Chengdu. Apple spends only $9 on labor for every $499 iPad.

That $9 is apparently too expensive, since Foxconn has been taking steps to replace its slaves with millions of robots.

There is plenty of money out there to pay laborers fairly. It just goes to the top. At $500.00 per iPad, there's enough money to double, triple [or more] these workers wages [$1.20 / hr] and still have plenty of money left for Apple and Foxconn managers without jacking-up the price.

>>Oh, and speaking of Apple, Chinese slaves are happy to hear that Steve Jobs is now dying of cancer.

Two years ago, toxic chemicals poisoned slaves in Suzhou, at one of the factories that make Apple products. Six months ago, some of the Chinese victims wrote directly to Steve Jobs, asking for his help in getting medical care and compensation for their illnesses and lost work time.

Steve Jobs ignored them.

In another case, it took Apple more than a year to acknowledge that 137 slaves got sick in 2009 at a components factory run by the Taiwanese electronics supplier Wintek, working under contract with Apple. The Wintek parts factory substituted hexane for alcohol in the manufacturing process to shave time off production of Apple touch-screens, but failed to outfit slaves with proper safety equipment.

Dozens fell ill, many were hospitalized for months, and several still suffer symptoms of nerve damage, like numb hands and feet, from exposure to the chemical

While Apple pronounced the situation “resolved,” the company cut all medical care for injured slaves.