14 DAY TRIAL // Labor activist and founder of China Labor Watch, Li Qiang says Apple is on top of the issues surrounding its assembly partner, Foxconn. In fact, the Cupertino company is doing much more than the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Nokia.
“I compared Apple with other cell phone companies, such as Nokia. And the conditions in those factories are worse than the ones of Apple,” Qing told Laptop magazine.
“Although I know that the iPhone 4 is made at sweat shop factories in China, I still think that this is the only choice, because Apple is actually one of the best,” he said.
Qiang sided with Apple in the never-ending debacle regarding Foxconn’s sweatshop factories, praising the company for disclosing the serious events that have unfolded over the years, such as the suicides.
He specifically noted that HP and Dell, as well as others, don’t even come close to Apple’s transparency regarding these imminent problems. And he said that although Foxconn is a tough place to work, it’s actually one of the best in the industry.
“Foxconn is not good,” Qiang told the New York Times. “But if we compare all industries, electronics, textile, toys, Foxconn is one of the best.”
To offer an example, Qiang compared Foxconn to Compal Electronics, which has very low safety standards.
“At Compal Electronics, a huge supplier that manufactures notebooks for Dell, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba, workers reported that the company does not provide face masks or ear plugs, despite loud noises. Apparently, there was not even a first-aid kit available. “In the event of an injury,” Labor Watch writes, ‘the workshop manager will give the injured worker some cotton to cover up their injury.’”
But Qiang clarified that it’s ultimately the vendor’s responsibility to ensure worker safety.
“If Apple still lowers their prices and doesn’t give enough profits to the factories, then the factories don’t have money to improve the labor conditions,” he said.
“So it’s always the problem of Apple and not the problem of factories. We can see that Apple is trying to put all the responsibility on the factories by releasing the supplier factory list and trying to put the factories into the focus of the immediate public, but we think that Apple should do more to make a positive change in the whole system.”