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Stories tagged with “Child Labor”

Economy

How Apple Sits On Billions And Makes Record Profits While Its Chinese Laborers Work In Deadly Conditions

By Tanya Somanader on Jan 26, 2012 at 2:15 pm

Apple, Inc. is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and profitable companies worldwide. Last quarter, Apple made $13.1 billion, it’s highest profits yet and a 117 percent jump from last year. Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook has increased his salary by six-fold and could very well be the highest paid CEO of 2011.

But as TP Economy editor Pat Garofalo notes, that profit is earned on the backs of Chinese workers who “continue to toil in tough conditions.” Apple contracts with companies in China to ensure swift and cheap production of a new product. But rather than put a percentage of those billions into improving working conditions for the people who make the iPad and iPhone, the company sits by and allows its manufacturers to maintain disastrous working conditions.

In fact, as the New York Times reported, according to employees, advocates, and Apple itself, these suppliers force workers — including child laborers — to toil in hazardous working environments:

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health. 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. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.

One of these suppliers, Foxconn, saw so many workers committing suicide at its factories that it instituted a no-suicide pact for employment and installed nets on factory roofs to prevent workers from jumping to their death. A former management employee at this company said, “Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost.” “Workers’ welfare has nothing to do with their interests,” he added.

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said a former Apple executive who spoke to the New York Times on the condition of anonymity. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

With total cash holdings of $97.6 billion, Apple could cover Greece’s debt repayments for two years or buy 2,000 tons of gold. Or, Apple could simply put a portion of that profit towards enforcing its supplier code of conduct or finding manufacturers that will abide by it. Instead, Apple allows suppliers to subordinate their workers’ welfare for the sake of a cheaper iPad.

Health

GOP Senator: We Need ‘Child Labor’ To Fight Obesity Epidemic

By Marie Diamond on Jan 17, 2012 at 5:25 pm

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

At a recent town hall in Osage, Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) responded to a question about the Labor Department’s stricter limits on child labor by claiming that they could exacerbate the child obesity epidemic by making kids less “active”:

Concern was raised about the proposed Department of Labor’s intent to greatly limit child labor on family farms.

“This farm bill will greatly affect our FFA and 4-H programs,” said Grassley. “Kids won’t be able to help on farms not owned by their parents.

“It’s interesting that this child labor bill goes against Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative,” said Grassley. “How can kids be active if they are limited by this law?“

Grassley represents a farm state that both relies on child labor and contributes to the national obesity epidemic through its production of corn products like high-fructose corn syrup. Iowa farmers benefit from billions of dollars in corn subsidies that allow them to put a glut of cheap, unhealthy foods on the market.

As for his Dickensian defense of child labor, that’s sadly par for the course for Republicans these days. Several GOP-led states have rolled back child labor laws. In December, seventy rural state lawmakers led by Rep. Danny Rehberg (R-MT) denounced the Labor Department’s new protections for the country’s most vulnerable workers. They argued that hard manual labor teaches children important “life lessons.”

Under current law, 400,000 children working on farms are not protected from exploitation and dangerous labor. The proposed rules would forbid children younger than 16 from working with pesticides, timber operations, handling “power-driven equipment, or contributing to the “cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.”

Contrary to Grassley’s suggestion, the physical activity children endure during farm labor is no picnic. The fatality rate for child farm workers is four times higher than that of nonagricultural child workers.

Many Republicans have mocked First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-childhood obesity initiative, but Grassley in particular has powerful financial motivations for supporting some of epidemic’s worst culprits. As a member of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry committee, he’s raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Food & Beverage, Food Processing & Sales, and Agricultural Services and Products industries.

Justice

Flashback: Child Labor Advocate Newt Gingrich Once Slammed Businessman For Hiring Teens To Take Out The Trash

By Tanya Somanader on Dec 12, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Republican voters seem quite taken with the idea factory that is Newt Gingrich. But, as conjurer of “moon colonies and space mirrors” and “invented people,” the idea Gingrich seems most taken with is the reinstatement of child labor. Believing child labor protection laws are “tragic” and “truly stupid,” Gingrich wants to replace “unionized janitors” with poor children who can learn legal work habits by cleaning the bathroom, or better yet, as “apprenti” for attention-seeking tycoon Donald Trump.

While it is now somehow politically advantageous for Gingrich to push for child laborers, it was — at one time — politically advantageous for him to rebuke them. As USA Today reports, in a 1996 ad called “Cookie,” Gingrich accused his congressional opponent of “unscrupulous” business practices for hiring children under the age of 18:

But in a 1996 ad titled “Cookie,” Gingrich slammed his then-congressional opponent, Michael Coles, former CEO of Great American Cookie Co., as an “unscrupulous businessman” partly because of a 1993 violation of child labor laws and accused him of using children “for hazardous labor,” according to a transcript of the ad in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Coles fired back with his own ad that said the 1993 incident involved two teenagers and that the company was cited for “violating safety codes that prohibit workers under 18 from operating freight elevators” when the teenagers were taking out the trash at a suburban Atlanta mall.

Indeed, it turns out that Gingrich has a long history of using child labor policy to opportunistically score political points. Lambasting then-President Bill Clinton’s idea for a summer youth jobs program in the public sector, Gingrich said, “if what you want to do is employ 700,000 kids, you would get much more ban for your buck by having a tax credit” for small businesses that hire them. As the Washington Monthly’s Paul Glastris notes, Gingrich’s main objection here is that “Clinton’s program would hire kids to work in the public rather than the private sector, the difference being that the latter represents ‘real work’ that is ‘incredibly more demanding than the work habits of a public bureaucracy.’”

But now, Gingrich is pushing to replace unionized janitors in schools (aka the public sector). The change of heart towards the public sector is more likely reflective of the political winds rather than long-standing principle. As Glastris muses, “[c]ould it be that he opposes [jobs programs for poor teens] only when they’re offered up by Democrats, and supports them only when they involve firing unionized workers?”

While the reasons behind Gingrich support for child labor are unclear, there is no doubt that his latest policy is severely misguided. Coles, now the CEO of an onboard airline advertising company, noted that Gingrich’s current proposal not only would employ children under 18 but would take away jobs from the number of adults today who need them: “There are so many unfortunate people who would fill those jobs.”

Climate Progress

Child Labor Advocate Newt Gingrich Concedes: ‘Kids Shouldn’t Work In Coal Mines’

By Rebecca Leber on Dec 6, 2011 at 10:08 am

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has spent part of his week in the spotlight defending remarks that he thinks child labor laws are “truly stupid.” Gingrich has suggested students could become assistant janitors and clean bathrooms to instill a “habit of work” among poorer children.

However, it appears even Gingrich has his limits. He conceded this morning on Curtis Silva’s WNYM radio show that while poor kids would benefit from janitorial work or perhaps an apprenticeship for Donald Trump, he does not think we should revert to true pre-child labor law conditions. Gingrich clarified:

Kids shouldn’t work in coal mines; kids shouldn’t work in heavy industry.

Politico writes, “This is the kind of statement that probably falls into the ‘if you have to say it …’ category.” Indeed, his need to explicitly exclude some of the most dangerous industries of work from this new vision for child labor is not a good sign.

Update

Gingrich’s attempt to keep kids “safe” by excluding them from heavy industry ignores the fact that 24,000 Americans die prematurely from coal industry pollution, although 90 percent of these deaths could have been prevented with available pollution control technology.

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