Toxic Apples from China

Before you take a bite of your new Apple IPad, you might want to explore how they're made:

In the first two hours outside the factory gates, Daisey meets workers who say they are 14, 13, and 12 years old...The workers stay in dormitories. In a 12-by-12 cement cube of a room, Daisey counts 15 beds, stacked like drawers up to the ceiling. Normal-sized Americans would not fit in them.

Newt Gingrich might find this acceptable, but I don't. I also find unacceptable the exposure of workers to toxins and other workplace hazards, not to mention how they're treated when these issues make it hard for them to continue working:

One group talked about using "hexane," an iPhone screen cleaner. Hexane evaporates faster than other screen cleaners, which allows the production line to go faster. Hexane is also a neuro-toxin. The hands of the workers who tell him about it shake uncontrollably.

Some workers can no longer work because their hands have been destroyed by doing the same thing hundreds of thousands of times over many years (mega-carpal-tunnel). This could have been avoided if the workers had merely shifted jobs. Once the workers' hands no longer work, obviously, they're canned.

One man got his hand crushed in a metal press at Foxconn. Foxconn did not give him medical attention. When the man's hand healed, it no longer worked. So they fired him.

It's long past time our government took stronger steps to keep American companies from skirting U.S. labor laws via offshoring. Aside from the fact that would make it less enticing to ship American jobs overseas, it's the right thing to do.

But as long as U.S. consumers and wealthy American investors would rather pay attention to propaganda:

Capitalizing on the intensifying competition in the branded OEM industries due to the trendof convergence, heightened environmental requirements from global awareness, evershortening product life cycle stem from ever demanding consumer tastes and the U.S. sub-prime crisis led global economic uncertainty, the Company is pleased to report continuedstrong market share gain induced growth and the ever apparent synergistic benefits tostrategic partner customers from the renown eCMMS model and the competitive advantagesfrom the ever comprehensive globalize platform.

Comparing the first six months of 2010 with the same period in 2009, net sales increased by57.0% to NT$ 929.3 billion; Net income improved by 22.6% to NT$ 34.7 billion.

"Despite the general uncertainty and a so-called challenging environment, under the backdrop of an increase weighting in company’s consumer electronics business, the quarterly unconsolidated results were as expected and remain seasonal," said Edmund C.A. Ding,Spokesperson. "Furthermore, we are especially proud with our accomplishments in marketshare gaining which in maximizing our shareholders’ value and in promoting and assuring social and environmental responsibility as a priority in a total supply chain initiative. Aside from being a recognized EICC member, we determine to continue revolutionize the manufacturing services providing industry by not only strive for the best speed, quality,engineering services, efficiency and value-added, but also enforce social and environmental responsibility standard to maximize our stakeholders’ long term value at the same time.“

than the actual truth on the ground, we will continue to lose jobs while also subjecting millions of foreign workers to horrendous working conditions.