Where the Workers Who Made Your iPhone Sleep at Night
-
By Joel Johnson - Gizmodo
- November 2, 2010 |
- 1:33 pm |
- Categories: Miscellaneous
I traveled to China to report on Foxconn and Shenzhen as part of a special feature for Wired magazine, which will be published in an upcoming issue. In the meantime, here's a glimpse of some of the things I saw in Shenzhen.
Foxconn's factory in Shenzhen, China, is home to about half its 420,000 workers. They make many of our gadgets and computers, then walk to dormitories on the 2.1-kilometer-square campus. I got to look inside.
This dorm is one of the older ones on campus, built near the beginning. It's a men's dorm — women have separate facilities — and populated mostly by entry-level workers.
Since a spate of 11 suicides earlier this year, every building on the Foxconn campus is draped in netting. It is morbid, but seemingly effective: There have been no suicides since the nets were installed in May.
Hallways remain institutionally empty, kept dim to save energy, keep the temperature down and to allow workers who keep a late schedule to sleep with less interruption during the daylight hours.
In this dorm room, eight workers sleep in four bunk beds in a room about the size of a two-car garage.
Toiletries are kept on a shelf in mugs.
A television viewing room is available on each floor. I joked with the Foxconn executive who was with me that of all the places in the world that could probably manage to get bigger TV screens installed, it was probably here at Foxconn, who make televisions for the world's largest brands.
Workout equipment is located in the spaces between buildings.
Newer dorm rooms share a sink on the balcony, where workers can wash their clothing and themselves. Management of the living quarters has recently been outsourced to a local operations company in an attempt to address concerns about employers overseeing living conditions of its workers. It's unclear how outside management will fundamentally alter the nature of on-campus living.
- – -
This special report is a partnership between Gizmodo and Wired magazine. Thanks to BorrowLenses.com for support. Send an e-mail to Joel Johnson, the author of this post, at joel@gizmodo.com.
See Also:
Good Stuff Joel, maybe your reporting will make people re think which companies they support.
Looks pretty nice!
Our jails in the states look better than this.
So if you want to commit suicide, aim for a bar.
Those of us who have traveled China, (even the modern Shenzen), will generally tell you that though there are few images here, the conditions look better than many other parts of China (Bejing, etc.)
It may not be Cupertino, but the facilities look a lot better than sweatshops I visited in Singapore in the 1970s. Given the difference in cultures between China and the USA I don’t think these photos are shocking at all.
“It’s unclear how outside management will fundamentally alter the nature of on-campus living.”
i can see that meeting now. “sir we will hire you to “run” our housing facility as long as you do exactly as we say”
It all depends what you compare them too. The facilities look very similar to some undergraduate dormitories that I have seen in China. The accommodations are certainly not family-friendly, but compared to one-story brick sheds in rural areas, they are FAR better. Admittedly, however, they’re not as nice as (likely much more expensive) private apartments.
…yeah, right…these nets are not going to help too much. After the acceleration of several stories of free fall, these nets (or bars) are not going to reliably keep someone from dieing. Perhaps they just want a psychological deterrent to divert suicide to more private locals.
Are those supposed to be bad conditions? They look fairly decent to me. I have seen many places in the US where people don’t have as nice conditions.
Additionally, the conditions there look fairly similar to some of our military living conditions here in the United States. While I was in the military we had dorms and shared bathrooms fairly similar to those in these pictures. Additionally, my first college dorm didn’t look much different than these facilities as well.
All in all, when I clicked on this link I was expecting much worse. I am not sure what FriedZombie is getting at – are these supposed to be bad conditions which make us rethink buying Apple’s iPhone? If so, I suggest that we look at the living conditions in parts of Africa where oil and other things we use are produced… These Foxconn conditions look like the Ritz Carlton compared to many places in Africa.
i have to mirror what others have said here. this really isn’t bad at all when you look at the rest of the culture and living conditions around the country its in. it looks no worse than any of the USA military barracks i’ve seen.
Compared to the United States or any developed country, the living conditions look pretty subpar. But compared to other regions in China as well as to living conditions in countries at a similar level of development, these are probably really nice. The pictures show lighting, exercise equipment, indoor plumbing, clean water, and access to dental hygiene products. Could it better? Yes. Will it get better? Almost certainly. But, the best way to ensure it never gets better is to stop buying the products of any company associated with Foxconn.
@Friedzombie
So are you blaming Apple for those conditions? Are THEY responsible for Foxconn and it’s workers?
The dorms in college were alot like this ( without the netting of course).
I keep my tooth brush in a mug as well. Seriously though, while the photos look fine (my apartment in Hong Kong was probably grosser than this) I’m interested in reading more about it. On the one hand it’s apparently better than everywhere else, on the other it’s a horrible dive. I hope you visited other factories, as well?
Yes, we should ‘blame’ Apple for these conditions. Without this factory, they would be living here:
http://www.google.com/images?hl=&q=china+slum
This is what our favorite toys cost us. Thanks for showing us whats going on behind the scenes.
Foxconn also make product for Dell, Microsoft and a host of other companies yet you always single about Apple – poor reporting. Maybe one day you’ll grow up to be a real journalist….
Not exactly the Ritz-Carlton but it is better than I suspected it would be, I was expecting packing crate lean-to with open sewers running down the middle of the alleyways. One poster mentioned military dormitories, the rooms look a lot like the 8 man rooms I had during US Army Basic Training at Ft. Dix in the the early 1970’s. A little more messy but about the same.
That’s what happening when all the American CEOs outsourcing…
Glad so many people like these accommodations because they could represent your future. In a flat world it gets harder and harder for so called advanced countries to maintain their edge and therefore relatively high wages. Wages for the majority of people in the US have been basically stagnant in the US for years. Service workers shouldn’t get too smug either as I’m sure India has a lot of similar places.
This was obviously what you were allowed to see. I’d be more concerned about their freedom to complain if things aren’t run properly. Who are they supposed to go? What free press are they going to raise a stink with? I love how everyone here in the United States, who would probably not last a year under such conditions, is rationalizing how it’s not that bad compared to other parts of China. (Also, did you ask to see their city registration cards? What’s the point in comparing this to other parts of China, when many citizens of ‘other parts of China’ lack the basic freedom to travel, let alone work in, the big cities?)
The real question is–why are these factories in China, which has almost no political freedom, and not in El Salvador, The Phillipines, Guatamala, Bolivia, Ghana, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Uganda, or Kenya? These are all relatively stable countries with lower rankings on the per capita index and higher rankings on the World Press Index or the Freedom House political rights index. Many of them are countries that we have royally screwed as a nation for the benefit of our trade and military industry. Back in 1972 many of them were no more closed off to foreign investment than the PRC. Why have US corporations spent the last 40 years pouring money into factories in China when all these other countries might have willingly worked for less? Could it possibly be that they were counting on the PRC govt. to hold corporate trade interest over workers’ interests should conflict arise? To use its totalitarian power to make sure environmental and labor grievances never made it to the light of day? To never hold elections and therefore never risk having the people call for better conditions and better environmental laws?
Face it, fanboys. Our toys are built on the backs of an oppressive totalitarian regime that uses its superior ability to be oppressive to outcompete not only Americans, but third world workers who are struggling to build democracies and self-determination. Snark about a photoessay isn’t going to change that.
@d_saum: Err, yes, Apple does choose its product suppliers, so if Apple or whoever knowingly chooses to use suppliers who put workers in bad conditions, the blame is at least somewhat on them.
.
That being said, it’s really hard to interpret the big picture here. I don’t care what school your at, no dorms sleep 8 people in that tiny of a room. Military personnel are a special case, especially when you’re talking about limited duration circumstances like basic training or when residing in a warzone.
.
This could potentially be people’s entire lives. No personal space other than your cheap bunk bed, shared in a room with 7 others. Almost no personal items. No good access to places where you can bathe yourself. Certainly doesn’t seem great. But, as others have pointed out, what we’re missing is the context here relative to others in the nation. The only way countries like China will grow and become more prosperous is if they keep exports up and bring capital in. As long as the people are treated humanely, I don’t know what else we can expect in an economically growing country.
.
I’m looking forward to the full article on this.
Wow! The complacency of the American Consumer Class speaks here. “Not bad” seems to be the general sentiment. Okay…so, I guess you can buy your electronic gadgets now without a worry about the people who make them, the conditions of exploitation required to deliver them to you at cheap prices, or the resources gouged out of the earth to make them.
Okay. Let’s see how this works out for you.
Good thing we are sending our manufacturing jobs there. Nothing like disposable income to raise the standard of living.
A pity that our standard of living has to suffer though…
For all you complainers: I grew up in the US and until I moved out on my own I had never lived in housing this nice. Not everyone in the US enjoys all the ‘benefits’ of our wonderful capitalist utopia. Sorry about the sarcasm.
Now my own children whine when the A/C or heat (central) aren’t to their liking. We Americans have had so much for so long we really don’t seem to have a clue anymore, for the most part.
Things will get better or they will get worse as time passes – it all depends on your perspective and how hard you’re willing to work for it.
Where did the workers who didn’t work on my iPhone or iPad sleep? Why not close to home and head down to the rural south and see whensome citizens sleep. For christ sakes that part of product development was farmed out.
Ok, these conditions are really not that bad at all.
Also, I don’t understand why Apple gets all the hate with regard to Foxconn. I hope everyone realities that Foxconn pretty much makes the majority of electronic chips worldwide.
To people asking why these factories aren’t placed in another country: China has the largest rare earth mineral deposits in the world.
The conditions don’t look so bad for a factory, except that: you might be OK working in such a place … would you want to LIVE in such a place?
Most factories in the US looked a lot dirtier than that 40 years ago. But the workers WENT HOME at the end of the day. Will these people ever have homes?
You got your product. The manufacturer got their profit. Who cares about the people who make all that possible? Why shouldn’t they serve their masters willingly? What gives them the right to expect any better? Dey lives on de plantation. Dey shud be happy what dey got. De master he is kind, he gib dem a church to pray in and bread and water and clean rags.
Looks like where we are heading as we slide into the third-world and China emerges into the first-world.
Guys, guys, the issue is not about the workers’ living condition(which in general being reasonable in most factories in China).
It is about in order to secure contract from apple(or any major brand), foxconn has to push workers to the limit to lower cost and maximise productivity. The worst method, 2 shifts a day non-stop, imagine 12 hours on the production line with thousands of parts that you need to put together. This put workers in extremely difficult situation. Foxconn has to do this because margin is so low now days that you have to go for extreme method, otherwise apple(again any major brand)’s contract will just go somewhere else.
In this case, it doesn’t matter if the workers live in a dorm or hilton, they just go flat after a few shifts.
Is foxconn nice to the workers? No. But this is the reality. Want to change it? You need to change much much more than foxconn.
people need to realize that china used to have every job include housing, and considering the way that housing in china is for these types of things, this actually isnt really that bad in comparison
I think putting consumers on the feel-guilty-hook for the actions and concerns of the governments that govern those people is ridiculous.
funny how gringos comparan en valor absoluto las condiciones de vida. Estos son los mejores trabajadores del mundo, parece que deban vivir así? sure others are worse.
Amazing pictures, can’t wait to read this story. Really great coverage foxconn, so much of the workforce that produces our goods is invisible outside of these giant industries, esp. from across the Pacific. Enjoy your articles, please do keep them coming.
Freddy probably also thought abolitionists were stupid for asking people to boycott slave grown cotton. Most people did. It’s quite normal for people to think it’s ‘ridiculous’ for them to even momentarily bother their pretty little heads about the repercussions of their choices on those less privileged.
Eliatic: the way to change it is stop being consumerist addicts who have to buy each shiny new gadget each year and to support products and companies that deal with free people who have the right to petition their government for a redress of grievances and get a fair hearing. But we’re all so badly hooked into the heroin we scream if someone even makes us briefly consider the possibility.
If this is what American workers have to compete against in order to be competitive, then we should be giving Apple a hard time.
Steve Jobs has become what Bill Gates was… pinching every penny to make as much money as he possibly can. He probably calls himself a Democrat but he behaves like what liberals think Republicans are. If it weren’t for the fact that every commie liberal liked their Mac so much, they would remember that their Greenpeace/Amnesty International/Organized Labor agenda should apply to Apple just as much as it should apply to any other Fortune 500 company. God forbid we try to bring back American jobs if it means giving up our MacBooks.
The room looks just like the rooms in most bases here.
I read it somewhere that each bed is shared by 2 different workers on different shifts. For example if there are 8 bed spaces there would be 16 workers using it, when one goes to sleep the other goes to work. Or am I misinformed?
-
Oppressed workers? Their pay are considerably increasing for the past few decades; even with Chinese government bsing about their currency, it’s just a matter of time when the wage of the working class raise to the point when it is much more profitable for companies such as Apple to manufacture products locally, i.e. manufacture in the U.S. and major consuming countries. Only then will the companies stop “oppress” them and lay off these workers, which ironically will lead to their economic crisis. Mind you, by that time they would have depleted their resources due to their unsustainable approach and progressing speed. Wake up people, sympathy only goes as far as you are willing to suffer.
Under what other conditions can a country develop? It is impossible to go from abject poverty to a comfortable lifestyle without crossing the intermediate stages. If these intermediate stages are not supported by real income (as in from manufacturing our ‘toys’), the trend will not be one of improvement, but of degeneration.
It is really unfortunate that life is unfair. That we can sit in nice houses and play with nice electronics while most of our consumer goods are produced in conditions we would never imagine ourselves working in. The underlying problem, however, is not in our present consumption patterns, but in the initially unequal distribution of capital between nations. Until a solid middle class emerges that can afford to create internal demand for the goods that it itself produces, it is only the rich that consume the goods produced by the poor. It is unfair, but there is no known way that works better. This is how *all* countries developed – in North America, in Europe, in SK and Japan…
The photos already depict conditions superior to most of the rest of the developing world (especially those unaffected by export-led growth), and far, far superior to the average living conditions in China even 15-20 years ago. This improvement was the result of 15 years of toiling away at our ‘toys’. Continued toiling away will continue the improvement up to the point that internal demand picks up. There is nothing noble about profiting from work you would never wish to do yourself. But how else can we quickly and sustainably lift 5 billion people out of poverty?
条件还不是最差的，这样的条件从任何角度来说都绝不是自杀的理由，只不过和apple产品的高贵形象反差比较大。其实和去餐馆吃饭一样，一道道精美美味的大餐往往出自又脏又乱的厨房，中国有句话叫“眼不见为净”是也。希望看到Joel精彩的后续报道
NotAFanGirl: “The way to change it is stop being consumerist addicts who have to buy each shiny new gadget each year and to support products and companies that deal with free people who have the right to petition their government for a redress of grievances and get a fair hearing. But we’re all so badly hooked into the heroin we scream if someone even makes us briefly consider the possibility.”
Firstly we live in a consumerist economy, that isn’t going to change any time soon. Feel free to move to North Korea if you want a different system.
Secondly, production of these chips is never going to be anywhere other than China, if not for the fact that they own 90% of the world rare earth minerals needed to make these chips.
Thirdly. If all of these jobs were transferred to your country today, what would happen? Well, the workers would go back to the slums from whence they came and have even worse conditions than they do now. Then, due to everything using costly labour, you would complaign that everything is too expensive.
Having just returned from my first month-long trip to Shanghai and the surrounding area… These living conditions seem appropriate given that they are for people living a modest life, working manufacturing jobs. I stayed in the home of a ‘wealthy family friend’ who owned a space she was not using in Shanghai, and while the 2 unconnected units on the 4th floor had dark hardwood floors, modern furniture, and 3 televisions in the space of 1,400~1,800 sq ft, the building itself looked much the same as this one. You enter the through a rusty gate, and you are in a wide concrete stairwell that feels eerily like an abandoned industrial site. The building complex even had a courtyard with similar exercise equipment. The unit was above a butcher on the ground floor – I worry that people are going to see these images in a negative light, as some of the comments suggest. There are cultural differences here that Westerners can’t fully understand without experiencing them for themselves. At least from my own experience, the lines of social class blur from the outside looking in. I wonder, with the shift schedules, how many people cohabit a unit at any given time… Thanks for the images.
@Empire08: “Firstly we live in a consumerist economy, that isn’t going to change any time soon. Feel free to move to North Korea if you want a different system.”
Ah, the classic “if you hate the all-you-can-eat buffet you must be a commie” idiocy. Not that the average American (let alone the average shrill celebrity commentator buffoon talking about Obama being a “socialist”) really understands what all these political terms mean. And telling people to “move to North Korea” if they don’t like rampant corporatism just creates – guess what – your own version of North Korea, albeit with a lot more billboards.
“Secondly, production of these chips is never going to be anywhere other than China, if not for the fact that they own 90% of the world rare earth minerals needed to make these chips.”
Suddenly all the free market types start to believe in local production! So, I guess we should look at the mining industry in China on our next assignment just to see how the conditions are “not bad”, at least according to the bored consumer with the voice in their head nagging them about acquiring their next shiny gadget.
“Thirdly. If all of these jobs were transferred to your country today, what would happen? Well, the workers would go back to the slums from whence they came and have even worse conditions than they do now. Then, due to everything using costly labour, you would complaign that everything is too expensive.”
Hell, the price of things might even reflect the cost! Advocates of the “free market” worshipping the economic bubble of the day couldn’t possibly have that: how could they show off their Enron-style accounting where certain costs just drop off the spreadsheet?
And what a lot of people dispute, rather than accepting stuff out of convenience to *them*, is how you help people become richer. Sure, Britain became a richer nation because there were children working in factories during the early Industrial Revolution, but that’s no argument for such abhorrent practices. In fact, all you’re doing by peddling all-or-nothing arguments is sucking up to a bunch of penny-pinching developed world fat cats (and their pampered shareholders who’d demand a bail-out if they didn’t get their premium on the share price) and the increasingly wealthy developing world industrialists who will stop at nothing in exploiting other people as much as they possibly can.
That some people also see fit to excuse poor living and working conditions in various places by waving the hand and taking about “cultural differences” is just another indication of how low some people will stoop when issues like universal human rights get in the way of their next gadget fix (or on making a quick buck while shafting other people). And when Americans make such excuses, it highlights such a shocking lack of cultural and historical self-awareness – think of the consequences of saying that a person who is different should expect less of a life – that one wonders whether they completed their education to any reasonable extent.
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” And this is seed ground for the next revolutionaries.
.
But bummer news like this is one of the things Matt Lauer & his ilk aren’t going to worry Americans with. Americans are happy to go forward believing their choices are not connected.
UHhhhh…. have any of you gone backpacking in Europe or Australia? The dorms in the photos are way better than most hostels I’ve stayed at in France or Australia. Most backpacker hostels have 12 beds in the same sized room as you see in that photo. In the 3 years that I’ve lived in hostels so far, that room looks better than about 70% of the places I’ve stayed at, and compare China to western countries and that room is luxurious. The largest dorm rooms I’ve slept in were 26 beds in Amsterdam and Australia with barely enough room for your backpack. At least those Chinese dorms have personal lockers. You’d be lucky to find a dorm with lockers in Australia and you’ll have to be careful with your valuables. There are tens of thousands of young European, Canadian, and Australian backpackers traveling the world. I recommend Americans start doing it. learn to live with less. Most of the places I go to, I’m the only American traveling.
There isn’t much to complain about from what I see in those sample photos. I’m not sure what’s the issue with toiletries stored in mugs. You don’t need special containers. I don’t think it’s the management’s responsibility to buy them containers for their toiletries either. You don’t need to stay in 5 star hotels Mr. Author, try staying in a hostel next time and you’ll understand how ridiculous your article seems to the rest of the world.
With regards to the beds themselves, I noticed that some of them had mattresses while some were just plywood sheets. You have to understand that in many parts of the world, people don’t sleep on mattresses. A lot of Chinese sleep on wood boards or bamboo tatami. If some prefer mattresses, foam ones are very cheap to acquire. I was in Indonesia recently and I saw a family who made hundreds of dollars off of tourists everyday, but they still sleep outside on plywood sheets when they had more than enough money to build themselves a house. They simply don’t see the point of wasting money when they’re perfectly comfortable outside.
Oh. Now I get why Apple is hip and edgy.
The sad thing is that this isn’t that bad compared to the slums of Beijing or Shanghai… or Appalachia and LA here…