Should we boycott Apple products?

[JFLL]

But it's not just about money. It's also about working conditions. The New York Times reveals that workers at Foxconn, the Apple supplier in China, have been asked to sign agreements that they won't commit suicide...

I can see the point of the post -- working conditions are so awful that suicide would be preferable -- but how would they deal with breach of contract? Punish the deceased's family?

[Stunsworth]

I can see the point of the post -- working conditions are so awful that suicide would be preferable

The suicide rate for those working in the Foxcom plant is lower than the Chinese national average. As mentioned earlier they also make equipment for many of the leading western tech brands.

[Op. XXXIX]

Switching to other products doesn't 'solve' the ethical problem. One of the NYT articles states that Apple is not the only electronics company doing business within a troubling supply system. Bleak working conditions have been documented at factories manufacturing products for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba and others.

Yeah, and you can add Microsoft to the list also. Windows and Office may be products from the huge Redmond, Washington campus, but the hardware ain't manufactured there.

No fan of Apple as a company, but IMO their laptops are the best, at least for those of us who aren't particularly concerned with getting 'under the bonnet'.

[Bryn]

My own experience with Apple products, both hardware and software, is pretty unremittingly negative, from the one iBook I ever had the misfortune to buy to the .aac to .m4a 'conversion' facility offered by the iTunes programme (I have also worked with many Apple products I did not own, going back to pre-Mac days). I don't even need an ethical basis for boycotting their overpriced, prettified products. As others have pointed out, Apple are by no means alone in exploiting cheap labour.

[scottycelt]

I'm also writing this on a MacBook but am under no misconceptions that some have of Apple ,,,,,,, It's not the retail branch of Amnesty International which some macheads seem to think....... I guess the ethical thing is to use Linux or even Microsoft as Bill Gates seems to be almost alone as a capitalist prepared to give away all his money to do good........................ I guess it's more ethical that selling weapons to the Saudis

There are plenty of billionaire 'capitalists' who give money away for good causes, especially in the US, where it is almost culturally expected of them.

However, I have a particular antipathy towards Microsoft which has always tried to monopolise personal computing and charge a hefty price for its products into the bargain. No matter how 'generous' Bill Gates is, I've always felt he is only being so with much poorer folks' money!

There are also plenty of Linux distributions out there which work 'out of the box' and are completely free to the consumer. Furthermore, in many ways those are the easiest operating systems of all to use. No endless registration numbers, or having to speak to a robot in India, or wherever, for permission to continue using the software after a new motherboard is installed on your machine. No one needs to complain about the price of a MAC or WINDOWS, when the solution is already widely available.

However, we are digressing ... we are supposed to be talking about stuff made in China. The simple truth is that China is the new workshop of the world. We boycott their goods and then everyone, including ourselves, would end up even poorer. Brilliant!

Come on, what isn't made in China, these days ... ? In any case, it is quite possible the average Chinese worker will be richer than his/her UK counterpart in, say, twenty years time ...

[Pabmusic]

The Guardian article quotes Apple:
"Earlier this month Apple took the unusual step of releasing a list of all the firms in its worldwide supply chain as part of its 2011 audit of human rights conditions at factories where it has partnerships.
However, the company's own list made for grim reading. It revealed that a staggering 62% of the 229 facilities that it was involved with were not in compliance with Apple's 60-hour maximum working week policy. Almost a third had problem with hazardous waste.
Cook [the boss] insisted in his email that Apple did not turn a blind eye to conditions in its supplier network. But he did warn that the firm was likely to discover more problems. "We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues," he said".

If this is so, it seems that Apple have concerns, chooses to publish the details, and expects to find more. Surely, people should only consider a boycott if Apple then does nothing at all about it.

[amateur51]

The Guardian article quotes Apple:
"Earlier this month Apple took the unusual step of releasing a list of all the firms in its worldwide supply chain as part of its 2011 audit of human rights conditions at factories where it has partnerships.
However, the company's own list made for grim reading. It revealed that a staggering 62% of the 229 facilities that it was involved with were not in compliance with Apple's 60-hour maximum working week policy. Almost a third had problem with hazardous waste.
Cook [the boss] insisted in his email that Apple did not turn a blind eye to conditions in its supplier network. But he did warn that the firm was likely to discover more problems. "We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues," he said".

If this is so, it seems that Apple have concerns, chooses to publish the details, and expects to find more. Surely, people should only consider a boycott if Apple choose to do nothing about it.

Thanks for this Pab!

I agree in principle but I suspect that Apple, like most large organisations, needs to feel the chill wind of public disapproval to spur it on to a resolution of these 'problems'.

[Pabmusic]

...I suspect that Apple, like most large organisations, needs to feel the chill wind of public disapproval to spur it on to a resolution of these 'problems'.