【新闻周刊20120331】在谴责富士康之前，美国人要好好回忆一下自己的劳工历史

woikuraki

【中文标题】在谴责富士康之前，美国人要好好回忆一下自己的劳工历史
【原文标题】Before Condemning Foxconn, Americans Should Examine Their Own Labor History
【原载媒体】新闻周刊
【原文链接】http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/31/before-condemning-foxconn-americans-should-examine-their-own-labor-history.html

It’s easy to condemn Foxconn’s labor practices, but Zachary Karabell arguesthat we should bear in mind that not so long ago those same conditions existedin another emerging industrial power—the United States.

(Page 1 of 2)

Apple has madewaves this week,but not for its products or its stock price. Instead, it has once again beenthe center of damning revelations about labor practices in Chinese factoriesthat make the iPad and the iPhone. But while Apple certainly deserves thecriticism, this story is not as simple as it seems. It’s not just about Appleand working conditions; the other story is U.S. anxiety about China, doublestandards, and an American tendency to forget our own history and how we haveevolved.

Over the past two years, Apple has come under intense scrutiny because of questionable working conditions at factories run by Foxconn, aTaiwanese equipment maker with megafactories in Shenzhen and elsewhere inChina. A rash of suicides at Foxconn plants in Shenzhen last year provokedinternational outcry, and served as a direct rebuke to the famously secretiveApple and Steve Jobs.

Under new CEO TimCook, Apple commissioned the Fair Labor Association to assess conditions at theFoxconn plants, and then released those findings yesterday.The report—which was especially critical of safety conditions and of laborviolations ranging from excess hours worked to insufficient overtimepaid—received extensive attention and in many ways supported Apple and Foxconn’scritics.

In releasing thereport and vowing to make immediate and extensive changes, Apple and Cook werepraised for dealing with the issues head-on. Foxconn’s chairman, Terry Gou, whois as much a celebrity in China as Steve Jobs was in the United States,promised to increase salaries substantially and to limit hours worked in accordwith both international norms and with China’s own laxly enforced labor laws.

By embracingtransparency and responding to legitimate criticism, Cook clearly moved Appleaway from the insularity of Jobs and took a cue from an earlier visionarycompany led by a strong-willed CEO that almost lost its brand luster because ofabusive working conditions: Nike. In the 1990s, under CEO Phil Knight, Nikefaced its own factory-conditions-in-Asia scandal and that led to atransformation of its corporate culture that has since established the companyas a world leader in both sustainability and innovation. Cook seems poised todo the same for Apple, and in his own very public embrace of change, so hasFoxconn’s Terry Gou.

Staff members workon the production line at the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city ofShenzhen, May 26, 2010, Kin Cheung / AP Photo

But what about theconditions in the first place? Who or what allowed for working weeks in excessof 60 hours, insufficient safety controls, and conditions that led to thatbizarre wave of suicides? It’s easy to say that greed on the part of Apple andFoxconn and reckless disregard for the millions of workers eager to get a jobin a fast-moving and economically tumultuous China were the cause. Easy, butnot quite right.

A bit more than acentury ago, the U.S. Supreme Court in Lochner v. New York ruled that aNew York state law limiting the workweek to 60 hours violated the contractrights of both workers and employers. Not until the late ’30s was that decisionoverturned. The New York legislature had justified the law as a public-safetymeasure to protect the health of workers, but the court viewed it instead asinfringement of economic freedom.

In their outrageover working conditions in China, most Americans probably do not recall justhow recently things changed in the United States. That is not a justificationfor conditions in China, but it is quiet rebuke against the veiled andnot-so-veiled accusations that China is somehow beyond the pale when it comesto labor conditions. In the past 40 years, Chinese society has gone from anagrarian economy with almost no individual freedoms and severe scarcity to amessy, complicated mix of authoritarian and capitalist. Factories such asFoxconn have been a source of substantial mobility of young workers away fromsubsistence farms and stultifying collectivism.

Foxconn employsmore than a million workers, 230,000 in one of its Shenzhen facilitiesalone–equivalent to a midsize American city. Audit after audit has shown abusessuch as poor safety conditions, overcrowded dormitories, and discriminatory paypractices. But take the most troubled midsize American cities, with high ratesof violent crime, drug use, incarceration, and yes, suicide. In fact, while the17 suicides at Foxconn plants between 2007 and 2010 sent tremors, the suiciderate was actually less—substantially so—than the suicide rate in the generalpopulation in the United States.

新工人网

认领这篇

新工人网

认领这篇

严景天

来晚了一步。{:soso_e118:}

woikuraki

新工人网 发表于 2012-4-1 13:17
认领这篇

好的。辛苦啦~~~~

woikuraki

严景天 发表于 2012-4-1 13:18
来晚了一步。

乖哦~~~~~~~