Apple: An Inconvenient Truth

Happy workers are efficient workers...

There has been some serious buzz about Apple's labor practices, recently.  Being at the top of their game, Apple is an easy target for skeptics, but what the media has been reporting is bordering on serious human rights violations.  Despite my general distaste for Apple products, I'll be the first to admit that they're not the only ones guilty of abusing laborers in developing countries.  Just about anything you buy that isn't built in the U.S. or Europe was probably built by a person who is abused by the system in some way.

The truth is, these labor practices are completely normal.  In the United States, it wasn't until 1938 that child labor laws regulated the minimum age of employees!  The Fair Labor Standards Act set a minimum wage, laid the groundwork for overtime pay, and made it illegal to employ children under 14.  The labor laws that protect us today didn't exist for our grand parents.  I'm not justifying this, but rather explaining it.

When a nation's economy develops, there are textbook examples of rights of passage, and before you point the finger at these nations, you need not look back very far in our own history to see that we are just another guilty offender.  Developing nations generally have poor labor standards, care little about the environment, and are exploited by wealthier nations who either take advantage of their cheap labor or buy their commodities at rock bottom prices and spin them into expensive goods.

While I find these practices to be pretty despicable, I need not look very far in my own room to see several products that are ominously labeled "Made in China."  So next time you blow the whistle on Apple for a conversation starter, ask yourself where all your bowls, cups, spoons, electronic components, car parts, bed sheets, water bottles, paint, soap, televisions, baby food, cell phones, toys, shoes, and jeans were made.  My guess -- and it is an unfortunate guess --  is that you wouldn't have been able to afford most of them if they were assembled by a pensioned, American worker.