Semester #2 Blog #10

Read the article and respond with the following:

1. Your personal response, which should include the thoughtful selection of direct evidence from the article itself.

I read an article about Foxconn planning on raising salaries for their workers at factories in China. I chose this article because of the iPhone article we read in class a while ago. It was shocking to see that Foxconn is actually planning to pay their workers more after paying them like $6 dollars for working more than 10 hours. They are most likely doing this because of all the people fighting for better working conditions. "Labor rights groups say that over the years, many Foxconn plants have violated Chinese labor laws by pushing workers to endure excessive amounts of overtime. Criticism has grown over working conditions at several Apple suppliers in China, including Foxconn, which employs more than one million workers to assemble some of the world’s most popular devices." People are starting to notice it and trying to stop this. The Fair Labor Associations have begun inspecting the factories to make sure they are following the rules, and the workers are in a safe environment.

"Apple and Foxconn, which is based in Taiwan, have strongly denied allegations that the workers are treated poorly. But Apple has acknowledged in its own audits that some of its suppliers in China violate Apple’s own code of conduct, with instances of child labor, forced overtime and unsafe working conditions and evidence that employees are sometimes exposed to hazardous and toxic chemicals." Apple, like always, defended itself by denying all this but later notices certain things going on in the factories. It is so not fair how these things are going on in 21st century. It was normal to see these things in the early 1900's like in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory because at that time there weren't really any laws for safe working conditions but now there and they shouldn't be violated. I mean even children are working at the Foxconn factories, which is not fair.

2. A link to an article that you recommend from a reputable, or academic, or professional, source that either supports the points made in the article you originally picked, or argues with it in some way. Include a brief piece of writing in which you explain your recommendation.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=1

Above is the link to the iPhone article we read about in class. The reason why I picked the article about Foxconn planning to pay their workers more money was because I remembered the iPhone article we read about in class. The iPhone article talks about how a lot of US jobs have been lost because some have been sent overseas. This makes the Apple company make more profit because they don't have to pay the workers as much as they do American workers. Why pay a lot of money when they could just pay a little to the Chinese people? That is what they asked themselves and picked the Chinese people to be the ones making their products, as well as other factories.

3. Questions for discussion, things to think about, ways to move forward, etc.

I think we should be aware of what is going on around us. That we are losing jobs in America, that Chinese people aren't given the right working conditions, and that there are even children working on some of the factories. We sometimes don't care about all this going on in China because we don't live there and it doesn't really happen in America, anymore, but we need to help these people being treated unfairly just because they are poor and they need the money. We need to be supportive and protest against these situations.

One question that I was thinking about while I was reading was, how will this increase in salaries affect Apple? Will they keep sending their jobs overseas? How will it affect other companies?