Does this impact your opinion of Apple?

I read a NYT poll recently that found something like 56% of  respondents could think of nothing negative about Apple and of the rest only 2% mentioned the working conditions in Chinese factories (biggest negative: too expensive).
 
Consumers could demand that the problems be addressed better...but we don't. We just want them to be even cheaper! 
Apple doesn't do nearly all they could, IMO. As long as all they really care about is better/faster/cheaper and are reinventing the product every freaking year, there is no incentive for factories to improve. There's no way for them to profit enough themselves to care for their workers by the standards we (pretend to?) value.
 
It isn't just Apple. It's Dell, it's Amazon, it's HP...the list is long. But as rich and powerful as Apple is, they could do a lot better and they know it.
 
Do I feel morally comfortable with wanting something that is produced by near-slave labor. HELL NO! It makes me feel ashamed... 

Apple has an insane profit margin. Definitely bigger than HP or Dell or all the other folks. That to me is a huge difference.
 
I would definitely be willing to wait longer before new generations came out. The speed of innovation is not worth the human cost.

I would be curious about all the other tech companies... is Apple one of the better ones? Are they worse?  Average?
 
I suspect a LOT of the objects we have around our houses were made in these kinds of conditions, or often worse (the fact that so many people want jobs in the factory would seem to imply that many of the alternatives are worse). 
 
Why are we able to afford so much 'stuff' that our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents couldn't?  Partly because the money we earn, even the relatively poorly off in the western world, is so many times more than in other parts of the world that we can essentially hire the equivalent of someone working full time for several months for us to make us a little gadget.
 
Apple gets respect for me for doing this audit and allowing the reporters in -- apparently that was voluntary on their part.

I've always wondered how much impact US companies can have in the employment and work practices in foreign countries.  These people are not apple employees, they are employed by the company in the country they work in.  Apple can demand changes, but who knows how long the changes will stick unless the work ethic in the country changes to believe that the demanded work conditions is what they want to embrace.  I think if people want the guaranteed good working conditions then the manufacturing of these products should be done in the US where there are already good employment practices that can be enforced.  The result would be we probably couldn't afford the cost of the manufactured goods.  

Foxconn/Hon Hai not only make Apple products but products for Dell, HP, Cisco, SONY, Nintendo, etc. etc. --- they are, bar none, the best manufacturing business in the world and has been for a very long time. They are incredibly good at ramping products to volume at very competitive costs, hence the reason why they have basically killed off much of the US EMS competition. Yes, the Apple campus has always been the target of many news stories (fire, suicides, etc.). I do not think any of the Foxconn campuses that I have visited is any "worse" than the campuses for other EMS companies in Asia. (Well, except for the ones that belonged to the US companies with lush campuses and air conditioning, and a full translator for the American manager on site).
But then again, I have not been to the new super-campuses, so who knows what things are like now. 
 
 
 

....will improve this issue now its out. Maybe this will lead to more transparency on the part of other mega-manufacturers with pressure by shareholders, stakeholders, and directors.
 
On the subject of huge profit margins, it seems to me that Corporations can't do any better as long as quarterly & annual profits are far away and beyond THE MOST IMPORTANT metric.
 
There's a new kind of corporate structure called a Benefit Corporation, or "B Corp"
 
This structure protects its directors to weigh in the environmental and social benefits of its business alongside with profits.
 
I blogged a little bit about it here: http://kayakmedia.com/2012/01/green-politics-b-corp-status-gives-busines...
 
I'm taking an environmental policy class and my head is buzzing with this kind of idea and others. If you are interested in more, check out Al Gore's recent writings about Sustainable Capitalism.
 
For a taste of Sustainable Capitalism, here's a not-a-Gore-fan link from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/02/sustainable-capitalism