Come, KILL with Apple!

I was in my dinner table last night, enjoying my after meal tea and gazing through the afternoon paper, when an article caught my attention, iSuicide. Like iPod, iPhone and iPad, iSuicide. The article was about the corporate giant Apple. Allegedly Apple's contractor in China, Foxconn, has created an working environment so harsh and stressful for its employees that in last 16 months 9 employees committed suicide. They are now practically undertaking affidavit from new employees stating that they will not commit suicide and if they do they forfeit all the benefits, specially those their families can claim. The report says that due to the hike in demand for Apple products the contractors are struggling to keep up with the supply, and to make up, they are forcing the workers with 12 hours straight shifts and in addition, occasional overtime, military style. On top of it these workers are not even paid the national minimum wage which is $300 a month or 800 Chinese Yuan. In fact at some places wage is equivalent to $8 a day or less. Now I do not need to stress but this is violation of every rule of Chinese, US and International labour laws. What is Apple doing about it? The answer is nothing.

According to Apple's own policy a worker should not be allowed to work more than 60 hours a week and obviously has to be paid, at least, the national minimum wage. But when their own suppliers don't follow the rule all they can do is conduct investigation. It is expected of Apple, a company whose entire business practice revolves around monopoly. Apple cannot afford to stop producing and marketing its 'iSuicide' products. But what about the consumers? What are they doing about it? Well the best they can do. Pre-order the latest 'iPad 2', few more lives out of the window? doesn't matter, I got to have iPad 2! It reminds me of this movie I once watched, where a serial killer entangles people in some hi-tech contraptions and hooks it up to the internet with a live streaming video of the victim. The more people logs into the website to watch whats happening the faster the victim dies of torture. Apple is doing it in real life.

About two years ago I wrote a blog (that was more an essay than a bolg, and I am a novice), where I tried to draw a picture of the massive human rights violation of the Multinational Corporations all around the globe. Now another giant follows their lead. It is a publicly known fact that last year Apple made approximately $2.89 billion in profit and now it is evident that very little of that is making its way to those who are literally dying to make their products 'flawless'. Apple's products are the most expensive compared to its equivalent counter parts. In addition to the hardware they enjoys a monopoly over the firmware and software for their products. All these comes from a very strict compliance of the US copyright law. But my understanding is that Apple is using this copyright law as a sham to fix price. But what seems interesting to me that US has a large volume of Anti-trust law or Competition law, which prohibits monopolization of markets (see Sherman Antitrust Act 1890) and none of these seems to affect the business of Apple or companies like Apple that violates Human Rights in foreign countries.

I am emphasizing on the term 'foreign countries' because US would prosecute any corporation or person involved in monopolization of US market or broadly speaking US interest, but they would do little or nothing when it is done in foreign countries. US interest is a vary broad term and thus monopoly in far away country market may invoke the wrath of US if it conflicts with US interest. (see for example United States v Aluminum Co. of America US CA 2nd Circuit 1945) But a contrary in never seems to be true, and as such a US company may violate the entire list of Human Rights and still it would not matter. There are dozens of cases to support this proposition, but some attention may be given to Doa v Unocal, Aguida v Texaco, Midland Bank Plc v Laker Airways Ltd.

Then again a large part is played by the host country in ensuring that Human Rights are not violated by the corporate giants (MNC). In this particular case this part was to be played by the Chinese government, but it seems China tolerates, to a large extent, violation of labour laws in their country. But that does not make it right. A reluctance of the LDC's and the developing countries in following letter of the laws make it easier for the MNC's to violate human rights. A control mechanism is needed in the national and regional level. Most of the developed countries have it. There's North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for North America, European Economic Area (EEA) for Europe, Organization of the Islamic Countries (OIC) for Middle Eastern countries (although some will dispute OIC's enforcement mechanisms). But they are there and slowly but surely they are working to develop a code, a standard of labour rights. In Asia only there does not seem any mechanism, in place, that works. May be its not the problem with the MNC's but with us Asians, may be we need to come together to form an economic unity to stop the west from exploiting us.

Well, it seems multi-billion dollar companies like Apple are in knee deep in exploiting labours. When they can't do it in their countries they do it in ours. But what are consumers doing about it? The answer has already be given once in the beginning of this blog, the rest of it you can find in the pictures of people standing in long lines outside Apple stores to get their hands on the latest 'iSuicide'. Which reminds me of this slightly modified comment, 'Come, Kill with Apple!'