Local and mainland Chinese university students, dressed as the Foxconn workers and the mock Ipad with skeleton print as they try to block the customers at an Apple Premium Reseller shop in Hong Kong Saturday, May 7, 2011.They protest against the Foxconn and Apple for the dire working conditions of workers. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Mr Daisey saw pictures taken by and employee at Foxconn discovered on a new iPhone, and although a lover of Apple’s products he couldn’t get the image of one of the employees out of his head. So he goes to Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China and manages to speak to the employees – and finds that were as young as 12 – but also a very human and funny story about the culture and journey to talk to chinese workers and secret unions. It’s not as dour as it sounds, it’s a funny and moving look at an American’s interaction with China and chinese factories, and his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs has been adapted for Chicago public radio.
Yes despite all the flap and BS from the late Steve Jobs around the time of the suicides at Foxconn, despite him and Apple saying that they check all their suppliers and aren’t evil, children work on Apple and other company products in China – and as Mike Daisey points out they must have known. And after the radio show went out finally Apple says they’re doing something about it and naming their suppliers despite not responding to Mike Daisey or the original program, I wonder if it’ll join the other lies on the conveyor belt.
For the record I own several Apple products, most or all were probably made in these factories…I worry about the conditions in those factories that made my iPod or my Mac Book Pro – but also the PR whitewash bullshit that companies that Apple comes out with – that’s why Apple gets targeted in things like this. But it’s just as much Dell or HTC or any producer of electronics since pretty much all electronics including your phone and laptop are made or partly made in China.
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