p2pnet - rss feed: No iPod sweat shops: Foxconn
p2p news / p2pnet: Foxconn Electronics is refuting claims by Britain’s Mail on Sunday that workers making iPods labour under poor conditions. The company has in fact been named by the local Shenzhen government as a role model among Taiwan-based investors in the southern Chinese city, says Digi Times.
Journalist should, "instead wonder why the buying parity of Chinese and Britons is so lopsided and ask Apple to reduce its high-priced iPod devices," says Perry Wu. "TomPut this in perspective, a decent 512mb MP3 player in China costs US$35, while the same sort of device in the United States can cost US$110.
"Yet a McDonald’s Big Mac in China costs about US$1.50 while the same dead cow sandwich costs US$2.50. I’m no Myron Scholes, but the differences in the ratios shows you that you can not make a valid argument between China and Britain based on the buying power of British money in Britain."
Now, Foxconn spokesman Edmund Ding is quoted in Digi Times as saying there were, "huge discrepancies between the truth and the claims in the report, which he said seems like a vicious attack on the company.
"He added that the company reserves the right to take legal actions over the report."
Foxconn, with some 160,000 employees worldwide, "excluding ones with its handset-making arm Foxconn International Holdings (FIH)," abides by the employment law in China, "which stipulates that the minimum wage for a worker in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone is 810 yuan (US$101) a month, and 700 yuan outside the special economic zone," Ding states.
Also See:
poor conditions - iPod sweat-shop accusation, June 15, 2005
Digi Times - Foxconn sternly denies iPod sweatshop claims, June , 2006
Perry Wu - iPod ’sweat shop’ claim denied, June 17, 2006
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