American and Chinese workers pay for Apple outsourcing

There's been a great deal of publicity about Apple's pledge to help clean up its Foxconn-owned Chinese manufacturing plants. Apple engaged the Fair Labor Association in February to report on conditions there, like the ones that led to a series of explosion which injured dozens of workers.

But a new report says that mere oversight may not be enough, as an incident near Shanghai illustrates. "Workers injured in a December blast at a Chinese factory say that Apple inspectors toured the facility hours before the accident," said the report.

National Public Radio attempted to find out the cause of the explosion but ran into the culture of secrecy, which may defeat attempts to impose safety measures. One worker, "Liu Hengchao, said he watched as inspectors wearing white gloves checked for dust levels. But he told NPR employees had been warned off by management not to interact with the Apple inspectors, who he said left after spending 10 minutes in the area."

Although there are certainly hazardous conditions at factories in the U.S., manufacturers don't have the same kind of immunity from inspection and prosecution that they usually enjoy in China. And, were iPads to be assembled here, American workers would benefit in many other ways. This contrast caused journalist Robert Kuttner to ask, in The Huffington Post:

"What if Apple made a decision to bring this work home, and to pay decent wages for it, say $20 an hour... Apple earns about $600,000 per year per employee. It can well afford to share a little more of that with its workers.

"The New York Times calculated that it would add only about $65 to the cost of an iPad or iPhone to produce it at home at good wages. And over time, it would tend to cost less, since higher-paid workers lead the company to redouble its investment in automation.

"Apple can certainly afford this transition. It is now the richest company in the world, sitting on a pile of nearly a hundred billion dollars in cash."

Don't expect this to happen any time soon. But until American workers have access to well-paid jobs in successful industries, and until foreign workers have safe working conditions, both will continue to pay heavily.

Fair Labor Association (website)

Injured Shanghai workers say Apple visited factory hours before explosion (CNET, Mar. 12, 2012)

Steve Jobs and American Jobs (Huffington Post, Mar. 11, 2012)