Apple’s Labor Rate: 16 Hour Days, 70 Cents An Hour?

Apple’s Labor Rate: 16 Hour Days, 70 Cents An Hour?

It's alarming to remember that the low prices of our iPhones and iPads and the super-high profit margins of Apple are only possible because our iPhones and iPads are made with labor practices that would be illegal in the United States.

And it's also disconcerting to realize that the folks who make our iPhones and iPads not only don't have iPhones and iPads (because they can't afford them), but, in some cases, have never even seen them.

Shenzhen's factories, where the iPhones and iPads are manufactured, as hellish as they are, have been an advantage to the people of China. The "grimness" of the factories, NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says, is actually better than the "grimness" of the rice paddies.

So, looked at that way, Apple is helping funnel money from rich American and European consumers to poor workers in China. Without these assembly plants, Chinese workers might still be working in rice paddies, making $50 a month instead of $250 a month. With this money, they're doing considerably better than they once were.

But, of course, the reason Apple assembles iPhones and iPads in China instead of America, is that assembling them here or Europe would cost much, much more even with shipping and transportation. And it would cost much, much more because, in the United States and Europe, we have established minimum acceptable standards for the treatment and pay of workers like those who build the iPhones and iPads.

The bottom line is that iPhones and iPads cost what they do because they are built using labor practices that would be illegal in this country because people in this country consider those practices grossly unfair.

Posted by James Fried on Tuesday January 24 2012, 4:23 AM EST. Ref: CNN. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0