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Ear to the Ground

Working Conditions in China’s Apple iPod Factory Exposed

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Posted on Jun 14, 2006
iPod factory
From MacWorld

The Mail on Sunday publishes an exposé on the conditions endured by iPod assemblers in China. Says a female worker: “We have to work too hard and I am always tired. It’s like being in the army. They make us stand still for hours. If we move, we are punished by being made to stand still for longer.”

  • Salon link (reg req’d)

  • Summary of article

  • MacWorld:

    Apple’s iPods are made by mainly female workers who earn as little as £27 per month, according to a report in the Mail on Sunday yesterday.

    The report, ‘iPod City’, isn’t available online. It offers photographs taken from inside the factories that make Apple music players, situated in China and owned by Foxconn.

    The Mail visited some of these factories and spoke with staff there. It reports that Foxconn’s Longhua plant houses 200,000 workers, remarking: “This iPod City has a population bigger than Newcastle’s.”

    The report claims Longhua’s workers live in dormitories that house 100 people, and that visitors from the outside world are not permitted. Workers toil for 15-hours a day to make the iconic music player, the report claims. They earn £27 per month. The report reveals that the iPod nano is made in a five-storey factory (E3) that is secured by police officers.

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    By Cathy Stanfill, June 16, 2006 at 3:54 pm #
    (Unregistered commenter)

    Throughout history “slave” labor and or poor working conditions existed to build various things such as the railroads. The iPod factory in China is just another example of these types of places. The 21st century slave market and also cheap laborers throught the world are used to make many of our modern state-of-the-art electronic items. Electronics, clothing, cars, and food crops all use “cheap” labor or slave labor (or prisoners in some cases).

    It’s all part of the world that we all live in.

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    By Robert, June 15, 2006 at 7:06 pm #
    (Unregistered commenter)

    Hey,  those of us who worked in industries that have been outsourced to China and other slave labor places.  That’s the main reason the only jobs available to us now are McJobs.  It’s not because of immigrant labor,  however such may assist in keeping McJob wages down.  Want to reverse your situation and get your factory jobs back?  Well, the way to do this is to forget about this immigrant bashing that the Mininutement & KKK are promoting and, instead, join with immigrants and their supporters in the struggle for equitable pay (including benefits) & a fair shaire of America’s economic and justice pie for all workers, us included.  Said move on our part goes by the name of solidarity .  It’s what won whatever victories that working class America still enjoys,  although whatever was won in the past is fast disappearing under the onslought of NAFTA, CAFTA & assorted other attacks by the powers that be on us ordinary folks/  .We best move quickly, too, because every day our situation gets worse

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