Steve Jobs (RIP)

[Nikkita64]

Steve your contributions to technology will be missed.

[TSCURIOUS]

Yup!
And that's what the wall street protesters are protesting!
With their IPods ordering take out from Peter Luguer's

[dakota87]

Steve Jobs is the reason we use computers the way we do, listen to music the way we do, and use smartphones the way we do. There's no one else like him. RIP

[Ben]

Apple, Microsoft slave labour claims



Last updated 14:56 15/04/2010

The National Labor Committee
Exhausted workers take a nap at their work stations during a short scheduled break.

The world's biggest technology companies are failing to stamp out child labour and abusive working conditions in their Chinese factories despite repeated accounts of human rights violations.
Recent reports reveal our insatiable lust for the latest gadgets is having a shocking impact on workers in countries such as China, who are being made to work more than 80 hours a week in sweatshop conditions for as little as 52 cents an hour.
Human rights group the National Labor Committee (NLC) released a report this week saying KYE, a factory in Guangdong province that recruits hundreds of "work study students" aged 16 and 17, who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week.
The report, produced after a three-year investigation, found workers were treated like prisoners and share primitive dorm rooms, sleeping on small plywood planks and having to buy their own food and mattresses.
It even alleged sexual harassment of female workers by security guards.
In March, Apple said at least 11 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories that supply the company. It also revealed that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple's rule that staffed cannot work more than 60 hours a week.
It said it had rectified the issue and conducted a complete analysis of hiring processes.
Meanwhile, the Telegraph.co.uk Shanghai correspondent, Malcolm Moore, reported this month that an 18-year-old female worker at the Foxconn factory that produces iPads became the fourth person in as many weeks to attempt suicide by jumping from one of the factory's buildings.
In its report on the KYE factory, the NLC said that, in 2007 and 2008, before the recession, "workers were at the factory 97 hours a week while working 80-and-a-half hours".
"In 2009, workers report being at the factory 83 hours a week, while working 68 hours," the NLC said.
It said workers were paid 65 cents an hour, "which falls to a take-home wage of 52 cents after deductions for factory food".
The report found that the workers had no rights and were prohibited from talking, listening to music or using the bathroom during work hours. Workers who made mistakes were forced to clean the bathrooms.
One worker told the NLC that they were treated "like prisoners".
"It seems like we live only to work. We do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work," the worker said.
The factory makes computer mice for Microsoft and products for companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech and Asus.
But the report found that Microsoft accounts for 30 per cent of the factory's business and that workers were required to make 2000 mice for the company per shift.
Microsoft said in a statement that it was taking the claims "seriously" and vowed to "take appropriate remedial measures".
It comes after a Chinese factory worker committed suicide in July last year after reporting an iPhone prototype missing. The worker, Sun Danyong, 25, was so scared of the wrath of his bosses and Apple that he committed suicide by jumping out of a 12th-floor window.
Sun's family was paid $US44,000 in compensation - and his girlfriend reportedly got a free Apple laptop - after family and friends reported that Sun told them he was beaten and humiliated by his superiors while being interrogated over the missing phone. The factory owner, Foxconn, denied the claims.
In 2006, the technology world was shocked when Britain's Daily Mail published photographs and details of the harsh working conditions in the Chinese factories where iPods are made.
One, owned by Foxconn and located in Longhua, housed 100 low-paid workers per dorm room with all visits from people outside the plant barred.
A worker told the paper: "It's like being in the army. They make us stand still for hours. If we move we are punished by being made to stand still for longer."

[Ben]

Apple admits using child labour

Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

March 1, 2010

At least eleven 15 year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories that supply Apple.
The company did not name the offending factories, or say where they were based, but the majority of its goods are assembled in China.
Apple also has factories working for it in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States.
Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. "In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment," Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers. Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight. Apple has not commented on the problems at the plant, which is run by Wintek, in the Chinese city of Suzhou.
A spokesman for Wintek said that "almost all" of the affected workers were back at work, but that some remained in hospital. Wintek said n-hexane was commonly used in the technology industry, and that problems had arisen because some areas of the factory were not ventilated properly.
Last year, an employee at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that is one of Apple's biggest suppliers, committed suicide after being accused of stealing a prototype for the iPhone.
Sun Danyong, 25, was a university graduate working in the logistics department when the prototype went missing. An investigation revealed that the factory's security staff had beaten him, and he subsequently jumped to his death from the 12th floor of his apartment building.
Foxconn runs a number of super-factories in the south of China, some of which employ as many as 300,000 workers and form self-contained cities, complete with banks, post offices and basketball courts.
It has been accused, however, of treating its employees extremely harshly. China Labor Watch, a New York-based NGO, accused Foxconn of having an "inhumane and militant" management, which neglects basic human rights. Foxconn's management were not available for comment.
In its report, Apple revealed the sweatshop conditions inside the factories it uses. Apple admitted that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple's rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week.
The technology company's own guidelines are already in breach of China's widely-ignored labour law, which sets out a maximum 49-hour week for workers.
Apple also said that one of its factories had repeatedly falsified its records in order to conceal the fact that it was using child labour and working its staff endlessly.
"When we investigated, we uncovered records and conducted worker interviews that revealed excessive working hours and seven days of continuous work," Apple said, adding that it had terminated all contracts with the factory.
Only 65 per cent of the factories were paying their staff the correct wages and benefits, and Apple found 24 factories where workers had not even been paid China's minimum wage of around 800 yuan (Pounds76) a month.
Meanwhile, only 61 per cent of Apple's suppliers were following regulations to prevent injuries in the workplace and a mere 57 per cent had the correct environmental permits to operate.
The high environmental cost of Apple's products was revealed when three factories were discovered to be shipping hazardous waste to unqualified disposal companies.
Apple said it had required the factories to "perform immediate inspections of their wastewater discharge systems" and hire an independent environmental consultant to prevent future violations.
However, Apple has not stopped using the factories.
In 2008, Apple found that a total of 25 child workers had been employed to build iPods, iPhones and its range of computers.

[onmyknees]

Ben....what's the point of your post? If you wear sneakers, I guarantee they were made with child labor in some sweat shop overseas. Blame free trade, but your post is ill timed. Let his family lay the dude to rest and grieve by all accounts a decent guy before you start the churn.

[fred41]

RIP Steve Jobs...

[Prospero]

Yes RIP Steve Jobs. The best tribute is the joy brought to tens of millions of us who use his beautifully designed products every day. He set a high bench mark of excellance. He cared. God rest him.

[giovanni_hotel]

[Paulistano]

Rip.