Human Rights Violations in China sponsored by American Corportions

Rabbit Hole of American Capitalism 

American Involvement in Chinese Sweatshops

December 5, 2014
Apple’s commercial triumph rests in part on the outsourcing of its consumer electronics production to Asia. Drawing on extensive fieldwork at China’s leading exporter—the Taiwanese owned
Foxconn—the power dynamics of the buyer-driven supply chain are analysed in the context of the national terrains that mediate or even accentuate global pressures. Power asymmetries assure the dominance of Apple in price setting and the timing of product delivery, resulting in intense pressures
and illegal overtime for workers. In global outsourcing, electronics suppliers are compelled to compete against each other to meet rigorous specifications of price, product quality and time-to-market, generating wage pressure as well as health and safety hazards at the factory level while
shaving profit margins.

Foxconn became China’s leading exporter in 2001 following the country’s accession
to the World Trade Organization and further lliberalizationof international trade. It has
maintained this position ever since. Foxconn’s expansion is intertwined with the Chinese state’s development through market reforms, and it has followed the national trajectory from coastal to inland locations in recent years. The underlying cause was that workers are subjected to an oppressive management regime driving them to meet the extreme production demands. Foxconn, Apple and many other multinational corporations, as well as the Chinese have thus far shown little interest in understanding the direct relationship between companies’ purchasing practices and labour problems in the workplace.

Distribution and consumption must continue in perpetuity if profits are to be made and
capital accumulated. Barriers to trade at all levels have to be drastically reduced. In the
twenty-first century, consumer electronics has grown to become one of the leading
global industries, and Chinese labour is central to its development. An ever quicker
and newer product release, accompanied by shorter product finishing time, places new
pressures on outsourced factory workers in the Apple production network. At the workplace level, very short delivery times imposed by Apple and other multinational corporations make it difficult for suppliers to comply with legal overtime limits. Price pressures lead firms to compromise workers’ health and safety and the provision of a decent living wage. The absence of fundamental labour rights within the global production regime driven by Apple and its principal supplier Foxconn have become a central concern for Chinese rural migrant workers, who are at the core of the most rapidly growing sector of the new industrial working class.

At present, the vast labour force at Foxconn and many workplaces are striving to expand
social and economic rights, bypassing the state- and management-controlled unions. A
new generation of workers, above all rural migrant workers, is standing up to defend
their dignity and rights. However, executives at both Foxconn and workers’ direct actions have been perceived by executives at both Foxconn and Apple as so threatening to social stability that government and employers have been forced to grant certain policy concessions and propose higher minimum wages, despite attempts to forgo this eventual outcome. The Chinese state is also seeking to raise domestic consumption and hence living standards, in part in major response to the struggle of aggrieved workers and farmers. Apple and Foxconn now find themselves in a limelight that challenges their corporate images and symbolic capital, Hence requiring at least lip service in support of progressive labour policy reforms. But for the time being, new generations of Chinese workers are still being kept in the shadow of American and Chinese mmonopolisticcorporations, suffering many human rights violations as stated by the World Trade Organization in their support of labour unions in China and overall democratic practices throughout the world.

Ultimately what is at risk is dignity and respect of one should show his fellow man. While the State is responsible for the safety and treatment of its people, The allowance of such mistreatment shouldn't be taken advantage or proactively perpetuated by another, especially in consideration to the human cost, overshadowed by financial gain and consumerism. The facts still remain that as long as the current system of market liberalization exists between Chinese and American corporations, it will be in the best interest of profit margins for American corporations to manage this abusive system until some external force threatens a change. In my opinion, the positives of such a system can never justify the negatives.