Blog 2: In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad

Last May, an explosion ripped though a building in China killing two people immediately and leaving a dozen people injured. The explosion came from the area where employees polish iPad cases. Chengdu, a city in southwest China, has become a place where millions of people work to power the largest, fastest and most sophisticated manufacturing system on earth. That system has made it possible for Apple and hundreds of other companies to build devices almost as quickly as they can be thought up. In the last decade, Apple has become one of the most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple, as well as other American companies, has achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history. Behind all the success of these companies are workers like the ones in China who risk their lives everyday to make these products. The workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions and are surrounded by serious, sometimes deadly work environments.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some employees say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Groups say that the suppliers are disregarding the workers health and well being by doing nothing about this. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Apple had been warned that these chemicals weren’t safe before the blasts happened, and nothing was done about it according to a Chinese group that published the warning.  

Apple is not the only company that is doing business with work conditions like this, but is one of the biggest. Apple executives say that Apple has made significant improvements regarding these problems but if they are, then why do these problems still remain? If this continues, Apple and other businesses that run his way could see bigger problems in their future. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?ref=technology