Apple 'deeply offended' by BBC investigation

[cronus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30548468

Apple 'deeply offended' by BBC investigation

Apple has said it is "deeply offended" by a BBC investigation into conditions for workers involved in manufacturing its devices.

Rules on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were routinely breached, the Panorama programme witnessed.

In a staff email, senior Apple executive Jeff Williams said he knew of no other company doing as much as Apple to improve conditions.

But he added: "We can still do better."

Panorama said it stood behind its journalism.

Mr Williams' email, published in full by The Telegraph (and reproduced below), was sent to around 5,000 Apple staff in the UK.

"Panorama's report implied that Apple isn't improving working conditions," he wrote.

"Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth."

He said he wanted the email to offer "facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their programme".

(continued)

[jaydot]

tough shit for apple. when did they get a pass for shitty behaviour?

[klr]

Is that the best their PR people could come up with?

[Svartalf]

Geeks are notoriously not good with PR

[Hermit]

In a staff email, senior Apple executive Jeff Williams said he knew of no other company doing as much as Apple to improve conditions.

Orly? From an article in The New York Times, titled In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad:

“You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards,” said a current Apple executive.

“And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

Kind of explains how up to 28% of Apple's turnover is pure profit. The greedy cunts are making it by pounding the people who manufacture their products into the ground.

It's also the reason why I will not buy any Apple products, no matter how much lapsed left wing activists praise their qualities.

[laklak]

It's because St. Jobs ain't around now, surely.

[cronus]

It's because St. Jobs ain't around now, surely.

Like when Jimmy Saville died....we are now getting to know the truth about a bad Apple.

[JimC]

In a staff email, senior Apple executive Jeff Williams said he knew of no other company doing as much as Apple to improve conditions.

Orly? From an article in The New York Times, titled In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad:

“You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards,” said a current Apple executive.

“And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

Kind of explains how up to 28% of Apple's turnover is pure profit. The greedy cunts are making it by pounding the people who manufacture their products into the ground.

It's also the reason why I will not buy any Apple products, no matter how much lapsed left wing activists praise their qualities.

[pErvinalia]

I suspect Hermit will find that most electronics companies will be using dodgy factory conditions. The point of the Apple exec is the focus on Apple. But that doesn't mean that other similar companies aren't using similar workers and conditions.

[devogue]

In a staff email, senior Apple executive Jeff Williams said he knew of no other company doing as much as Apple to improve conditions.

Don't you just love that? It's like Apple is battling to cure cancer or AIDS, striving for world peace, doing as much as it can to improve conditions, but it's going to take time, years, perhaps decades, because this painful, difficult journey can only be taken one step at a time...

How about using some of your US$156,000,000,000 cash reserves to fucking improve fucking conditions.

It's not about work conditions, social contracts, blah blah fucking blah - PAY THEM PROPERLY FOR THEIR WORK.

[JimC]

And now, devogue will lead us all in a choral rendition of The Internationale...

[Hermit]

It's because St. Jobs ain't around now, surely.

You think? When Jobs regained control of Apple in 1997 he promptly axed every and all the corporation's philanthropic expenditure as part of a cost cutting program. That was well and good for a company that teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, and it was only part of other cost cutting measures, which included the firing of executives, terminating the manufacture of products that didn't make money and so on. He turned the company around quicksmart, but in the many years since Apple returned to be a money printing business again not a single charitable program was reinstated or initiated until after Jobs retired from his role of CEO. Jobs was the ultimate arsehole from before he got a woman pregnant, abandoned her and spent years denying that any of this ever happened, and he shaped Apple in his image.

[Hermit]

And now, devogue will lead us all in a choral rendition of The Internationale...

Calling for a company that makes up to 28% profit from its revenue to pay the workers that actually manufacture the goods it makes its money from a proper wage and provide satisfactory conditions is hardly a radical or objectionable thing to do.

You've come a long way since you last sang the Internationale, Jim.

[mistermack]

Apple are sitting on mountains of cash because they persuade punters to pay twice the price that stuff is worth.
Not because they have slave labour.

If people are free to come and go, then the price of labour, and work conditions, are down to market forces.
Are you exploiting someone, by giving them a job that they want, and which is better than anything else they can find?

I'm not a fan of Apple, but Panorama is shit, and has been for years now.
It used to be really good, but those days were a long long time ago.

Now they just go for the headline, and fuck the reality of context.

[Svartalf]

The one doesn't preclude the other you know... win at either end of the process, like.