Increasing human costs of building an iPad

Increasing human costs of building an iPad

Apparently,the human cost of building a single iPad is increasing. An explosion ripped through Building A5 on a Friday evening last May, an eruption of fire and noise that twisted metal pipes as if they were discarded straws. When workers in the cafeteria ran outside, they saw black smoke pouring from shattered windows. It came from an area where employees polished thousands of iPad cases a day.Two people were killed immediately, and over a dozen others hurt. The injured were rushed into ambulances.In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, by mastering global manufacturing. Apple, as well as other American industries have achieved a pace of innovation nearly undisputed in modern history. However, workers assembling devices work in harsh conditions and the main cause of this problem is the lack of safety.Employees that work excessive overtime, some seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some claim they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped to build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have doena bad job of disposing hazardous waste and records, according to company reports, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.A more troubling issue is some employer's complete disregard for human life.Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Seven months later, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before these incidents, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to the Chinese group that published that warning. Nicholas Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a group that advises the United States Labor Department was quotes saying that “If Apple was warned, and didn’t act, that’s reprehensible but what’s morally repugnant in one country is accepted business practices in another, and companies take advantage of that.” Apple is not the only electronics company doing business with a troubling supply system. Grim working conditions have been documented at factories manufacturing products for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba and others. Current and former Apple executives, say the company has made significant efforts in improving factories in recent years. Apple has a supplier code of conduct that details standards on labor issues, safety protections and other topics. The company has mounted an auditing campaign, and when abuses are discovered, Apple says, corrections are demanded.Apple’s annual supplier responsibility reports, in many cases, are the first to report abuses. This month, for the first time, the company unveiled a list identifying many of its suppliers. However, significant problems remain. More than half of the suppliers audited by Apple have violated at least one aspect of the code of conduct every year since 2007, according to Apple’s reports, and in some instances have violated the law. Though many violations involve working conditions, rather than safety hazards, troubling patterns persist.