Foxconn Factoids from ABC News’ Nightline Special Report (with Full Video!)
As we reported on Monday, ABC News’ Nightline aired a 30-minute special report Tuesday night that put the spotlight on factory conditions at Foxconn, where many of Apple’s products are manufactured. Missed it? Read on for the highlights.
The Verge has assembled a list of key points from Tuesday night’s Nightline special report on Foxconn. ABC News anchor Bill Weir is the first journalist to be granted access to the factories where Apple’s popular devices are manufactured and assembled, which comes at a time when the spotlight is already shining on these Chinese facilities rather intently.
As it turns out, the report didn’t reveal anything truly shocking -- or as The Verge editor Joshua Topolsky puts its, “there wasn’t much meat on the bones of the 30-minute report.” But that doesn’t mean the Nightline broadcast didn’t glean a few factoids about Foxconn and Apple’s relationship with the company.
For example, there are 141 different steps involved in making an iPhone, almost all of which is done by hand. Meanwhile, it takes five days and 325 hands to produce a single iPad, even though Foxconn manages to produce 300,000 iPad camera modules each day.
On the subject of the Foxconn workers, they receive $1.78 per hour for their work and sleep six to eight in a Foxconn-provided dorm room, which costs each worker $17.50 per month (yes, paid out of their salary). Foxconn workers also pay for their own food (70 cents per meal) and work in 12-hour shifts. Ready to sign up? New hires must survive three days of training and “team building exercises” first.
Last but not least, Apple’s voluntary inspections by the Fair Labor Association are costing the iPhone maker $250,000. And did you know that Foxconn executive Louis Woo would actually prefer it if Apple forced the manufacturer to pay its workers double the pay? Sounds like somebody’s making too much bank.
ABC News has posted the entire Nightline special report, which is available in all its Adobe Flash-plagued glory embedded below as well as through the ABC News app.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Image courtesy of The Verge; video courtesy ABC News)
driverajr
February 22, 2012 at 6:06pm
It begins at home in America. American companies like Target, Fedex and more are literally starving the American people with 8-16 hour work weeks and compacting a four hour day work load into a two hour shift of a day. I just had to leave my Fedex Ground job because of the slave methods and low hours. The American people are starving to death and this is supposed to be the greatest nation in the world. These worker issues have to be repaired by each nation at home base. The American people are literally having their blood drawn faster and faster and faster by the financial overpowers.
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