Recently, the Associated Press reported on the suicide of a Chinese woman, identified only by her surname ‘Chu,’ who worked at a Shenzhen manufacturing plant. The plant is operated by Foxconn Technology, the world’s largest contract maker of electronics, and employs some 300,000 workers. Foxconn’s employees manufacture many products for many American companies such as Intel, HP, and Apple. If you have an iPod or iPhone in your pocket, there’s a good chance that Foxconn built it.
With a factory complex the size of a small city, it normally wouldn’t be news when one worker commits suicide. Given a large enough population, a tragic loss is bound to happen eventually. Except that Chu was the eighth Foxconn worker to commit suicide this year. And there were others before that.
It’s a chilling trend, and a very public problem that has Apple and others scrambling to respond. For its part, Foxconn insists that it is not to blame. According to the AP, representatives state that its treatment of workers is world-class. This despite an earlier Apple-initiated audit that showed several serious labor law violations. Some employees were working more than the maximum allowable hours, and up to 25% of workers were not afforded any days off.
Apple has responded as well, saying that it is “independently evaluating the steps [Foxconn is] taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made.”
Of course, Apple is not the only American company to have faced allegations of overseas worker abuse. For example, in his popular program “Phedippidations” (one of my favorite running companions), podcaster Steve Runner recently addressed the working conditions at some Nike suppliers. Runner particularly highlighted the efforts of a nonprofit called “Team Sweat” to educate the public about alleged Nike misbehavior.
According to Team Sweat, Nike has avoided addressing allegations of worker abuse in the past, going so far as to personally attack Team Sweat’s founder, Jim Keady. Fortunately, Nike has begun to address some of the concerns, but according to Keady, there is still much work to do. (For much more on Team Sweat and Nike, I highly recommend the group’s website, listed below. Keady has put in a lot of time in overseas factories, and he does a much better job of explaining these issues than I ever could.)
In the past, rights groups have accused many other consumer goods makers, such as Gap, Microsoft, Gucci, Sean John, and Banana Republic, of taking advantage of sweatshop labor.
Consumers who wish to discourage such abuse are in a difficult position. If I buy Nike shoes (which, in fact, I do), I am in effect ‘voting with my wallet’ for Nike’s practices. However, if I joined in a boycott of Nike shoes, and sales eventually plummeted, overseas workers who already have few employment options could find themselves unemployed and facing even worse prospects. Change, therefore, most likely should be made without resort to widespread changes in buying habits. Keady even goes so far as to discourage discussion about which products to buy and which to avoid, saying, “it’s not about you.” “Ethical consumerism” thus becomes an oxymoron. A paradoxical state.
To my mind, worker abuse should not be tolerated in the least, especially from corporations that are otherwise responsible, creative, and socially useful. It is common for corporations to maintain “zero tolerance” policies for unwanted employee behaviors such as sexual harassment, fighting, or drug abuse. Under such a policy, you get caught one time, you’re fired. A supplier should be held to no less a standard. It may be an independent entity, but a manufacturer is still in a mutually-beneficial relationship with the company. Corporations that engage in overseas manufacturing should add the same sort of zero tolerance policy to their supplier agreements. You abuse your employees, you get caught, your contract is suspended (or terminated). If overseas manufacturers will not respond to mandatory ethics policies, perhaps they will respond to financial loss.
Certainly such a policy could ultimately make for costlier goods. It could also mean a shift in manufacturing jobs from one area of the world to another. But job shifts are already a well-known side effect of globalization. What is a fair price to pay for trying to make sure Chinese workers are not being forced to put in 15-hour shifts to keep their jobs? Or for trying to make sure Indonesian workers are not being forced to work overtime for no pay? Or for trying to make sure Indian workers are not making shoes that they themselves could never hope to afford?
Although companies like Apple and NIke may be able to plausibly deny responsibility for egregious worker conditions in far-away factories, the conditions nevertheless persist. The fact is, a manufacturing plant in Oxford, North Carolina, or Toledo, Ohio would never be able to treat their workers the way some foreign suppliers do. Yet, take the same plant and move it out of sight and out of mind, and fill it with people who do not look like us, act like us, or speak like us, and the indignation seems to disappear. The real question may not be who we should blame, or what we should buy, but something more fundamental. The question we should be asking is, what are you and I willing to ignore, so long as our toys are cheap and our stock is up?
