>Within 16 months Wistron was making Dell handhelds and Microsoft's Xbox videogame consoles, according to industry reports. (Wistron doesn't identify its customers.)
They weren't very good; while thankfully my laptop was not a victim of the capacitor plague, they had some really bad design around the power port; over time just normal insert cycles would cause the connector to get loose and short in various ways. At one point I would have to 'shim' the plug in with paper to make sure that the contacts were well connected. The problem surfaced after a year, and after a factory repair, I got another year before the problem came back.
Thankfully the real fix was to use a better 'plug', one that had a threaded base (i.e. a threaded hole goes through the plastic, a 'cap' holds it in place).
It's an Apple supplier, not Apple. Besides, what does it matter that it's a trillion dollar company? It implies that if say 1 million small companies worth 1 million, would fare better in forcing a large supplier like Windsor or a large number of smaller suppliers, to respect India's local labour laws vis-a-vis their employees. That's a ridiculous assumption I think. If anything I trust that Apple's market power will force Wistron to pay out its workers according to the terms they agreed, much quicker than if Apple was, say, a small-time no-name company.
It's entirely right to be outraged about this, don't get me wrong. But I don't see the cause being related to Apple being a trillion dollar company. Nor do I see Apple screwing people over.
Tons of small and large companies in India screw with local labour laws all the time. If anything I'd expect that Apple suppliers would do so less on a per-worker basis. That's an assumption I'd like to see tested. The current system (courts or trial-by-media) will likely work for Apple holding its suppliers accountable. For a small company? Not so much.
When a company claims it is not shipping a charger in the box due to environmental concerns, how can it repeatedly be caught using slave labor ?
Can't a company that builds monumental buildings in the MOST expensive real estate in the world not hire a few DIRECT EMPLOYEES who monitor working conditions in supplier factories on a day to day basis ?
If a trusted name in HN Community or the tech world starts this many would contribute and it would have network effect.
Once we have Linux on mobiles, many startups would form around this ecosystem. Which would - localize jobs redistribute wealth so that Apple & Google don't get to hoard it. stop planned obsolescence which is rampant these days. create a market for open source hardware / cruelty free hardware.
Okey, do you have an alternative? Google is even worse.
This paper is from 2017 but their promised pay is much less than what Apple's supplier here originally promised (and then reneged on, which is likely a large motivator for the rioting): https://goodelectronics.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/...
You can also easily find articles about Samsung's factories in Vietnam if that suits your fancy.
According to SCMP, most, or about 85%, of Wistron's factory workers are contractors[1]. While there seems to be some discrepancy between workers wages reported and received at Samsung factories, the figure reported by Apple/Wistron's factory workers are as much as ~45% less -- Rs 21,000 promised vs Rs 12,000 received.
Now, I'm not saying that Samsung is a better corporate citizen, but it's just that I don't hear Samsung's CEO parading around making grandstanding speeches about how ethically they run their business or socially, environmentally responsible they are, at least not as often.
We are up in arms about climate change with govt, but when a TRILLION dollar private company screws people over - not a word. Wait in line to buy their products.
Its hard not to think that most Americans still prefer and like slavery. Just that a few black people managed to escape the publicly acceptable version of it.