It’s More than Just Bad PR for Apple, Foxconn and the iPhone 5
From worries over iPhone 5 shortages to factory riots, there’s no shortage of drama for Apple and its manufacturing partner Foxconn. SiliconANGLE editor-in-chief Mark Hopkins hopped on the News Desk this morning to discuss the latest on the employee kerfuffle at Foxconn, which lists some of the world’s biggest tech firms as clients.
The Chinese manufacturing giant is no stranger to bad PR. Foxconn has one million workers manning its assembly lines, and poor working conditions have resulted in fights, suicides and other incidents that drew the West’s attention to the electronics firm. Most recently, the company was reportedly forced to halt production for a day when thousands of people simply “walked off the job.”
The cause of last week’s strike was a violent clash between quality and production teams over the manufacturing of faulty iPhone 5 cases. Foxconn is apparently struggling to meet Apple’s quality standards due to overwhelming customer demand – over five million iPhone 5s were shipped in the first three days after launch.
In spite of this, Hopkins puts the blame on Foxconn, not the user. He says that the Chinese firm should be held directly accountable for treating its workers poorly, although it’s not as simple as that. The iPhone maker, after all, has lot of leverage in this regard: justified criticism or not, Foxconn offers better working conditions than most of its peers, including a salary well above the minimum wage in the region.
The worker rights issue in China is after all not limited to one manufacturer, but Hopkins believes that this will be eventually addressed as the nation’s evolves both economically and structurally. Barreling down on Foxxcon cannot possibility yield a quicker solution – one would have to direct their attention to Apple for that.
He outlines a couple of the routes the company could take during the interview. One approach would be slowing down release cycles, but that would have a very negative impact on Apple’s image and consequently their sales. Moving manufacturing to a region with improved working conditions is potentially a lot more viable, although that would also impact the firm’s bottom line.
To hear Hopkins’ full analysis, watch the video below:
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