On 11/06/2011 10:13 AM, Hsuan-Yeh Chang wrote:
Stephen Adler<[email protected]> wrote:
I've recently read a news article which talked about Foxconn and their
supposed abusive labour practices. Foxconn is the maker of a lot of
popular electronics including the iPhone.
This got me thinking, when I go off an buy a motherboard or memory SIMM
or whatever, am I buying a product which has been manufactured by
laborers who work under conditions I wouldn't allow my own family to
work under? Is there any awarness campain or whatever which allows one
to buy some electronic component which was manufactured in conditions
which meet some kind of labor standards? On my part, I would pay more
for my electronic components if I new they were being manufactured using
a by someone who's working under good conditions, not sweat shop like
conditions. Am I being too paranoid about this in the sense that labor
conditions in China are just fine and the workers are well paid and not
over worked?
It all boils down to cost. Foxconn is one of the OEM manufacturers,
who make products in accordance with the specification of brand names
(such as HP, Dell, etc.). Admit it or not, when you pay X amount of
dollars for your hardware, most of your money goes to the brand names,
not to the OEMs. The OEMs only have a profit margin of at most 3-5%.
Foxconn is not the target to blame. It's the brand names who hide
behind the scene and who earn big bucks. Ask the brand names to give
OEMs more profit margins such that they can improve their workers'
working condition. Those brand names bring production lines
off-shore, partly because they want to earn more by cutting cost and
partly because they don't want to be blamed of putting employees under
undesirable working conditions, which closely correlate with cost
control.
HYC
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Going forward, I'm going to pay more attention to where the stuff I buy
comes from. And hopefully I'll have time to research alternate
manufactures who, at least through internet searches, don't have as bad
a rep as other manufactures....
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