Apple Inc. is devoted to creating the finest music and personal computing experience for every single one of its users, from students to educators, business professionals to government officials and other consumers by means of ground-breaking hardware, software, internet offerings, peripherals, and services. Apple’s business approach powers its distinctive ability, through the design and progression of its personal operating system, hardware, and countless technologies and software applications, to provide its customers the latest creations and simple solutions through outstanding innovative industrial design.
Before being able to produce some of the finest computer products we have nowadays, Apple went through countless processes and hurdles. Apple was established in 1976 by two college dropouts, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Also part of the team was Ronald Wayne, who was older and had personal assets of his own. Wayne’s uncertainty of the company worried him about the risk of investing his assets, and resulted with him selling his share back to Wozniak and Jobs for $800. That same share of the company would be worth over 3 billion dollars today. The main objective of starting the company was to sell their first invention, The Apple I, which took place on January 3rd, 1977. It was successful for use at the time as it only included the most important parts: a straightforward motherboard plus CPU, RAM and very simple textual-video chips. Only a few months later, The Apple II was released during April, 1977. By the end of 1978, the United States saw Apple to be one of the fastest-emerging companies having its products available through 100 dealers. Apple’s development continued to grow with more and more developments and by December 1980, the company went public. Within only minutes, 4.6 million shares were sold at $22 each. The company was formerly recognized as Apple Computer Inc., for the first 30 years, but later removed ‘computer’ from its name to reflect its expansion into consumer electronics and wanted a better portrayal as a lifestyle powerhouse rather than just personal computers. It continued to produce some of its popular products today including the Macintosh line of computers, iPod, iPhone and the iPad. Apple’s attitude towards comprehensive artistic design as well as its unique advertising operations is just a few of many reasons why the company has created a distinctive reputation in today’s computer industry.
Controversies exist whenever a firm becomes big. We cannot really judge the actions of a firm as it’s just not one person who is in control. A firm consists of ethical and unethical employees. One of the most famous ethical dilemma’s faced by apple was the Foxconn case.
Foxconn International Holdings Ltd. is a multinational subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Co Ltd., a Taiwanese company that is the world’s largest maker of electronic components. According to the 2010 Fortune Global 500 Companies, Foxconn secured the 112th rank overall earning a profit of 2,291.7 and revenue of 59323.9 million dollars. The company’s primary focus was on providing vertically integrated manufacturing services for the handset industry. Foxconn’s employee count reaches more than half a million in China alone. The founder of the company is Terry Gou, a billionaire, and has made Foxconn the world’s largest manufacturer of printed circuit boards spreading all over Asia, Europe and America. Majority of the company’s sales to Asian customers is attributed to the People’s Republic of China. The operational activities of the company is primarily located in China, then the United States, Mexico and other countries.
Foxconn in the recent past has been involved in manufacturing in large quantities products for Apple viz., the iPod, iPad and the iPhone. Being one of the most renowned companies in the world, Foxconn has been involved in controversies mainly on how to manage employees. These initiated with the set-up of the Apple factory in Shenzhen, China. Apple was all over the news around the first week of Feb ’10 not only for its sensational launch of the iPad, but also because of the high number of worker suicide in its Foxconn factory. Amidst all this, 12 Foxconn workers have already ended their lives in 2010, by jumping of the multi-story dormitories they live in or from the building during the very short duration of rest which they were given. This crisis has urged the company to install safety nets in between the buildings as 20 more were stopped from killing themselves by the company authorities. At Longhua, there was a highly charged. This is because approximately 350,000 workers eat and otherwise live there, and during their protests, they had started chanting an insulting chant at Foxconn. The president of Foxconn, after heavy negotiations, said that the company would plan to move a significant portion of its workforce to a Western part of China, where they will be closer to their families. The case had become so out of control that the people who lived around the company premises had started calling the factory a Death Express. Management also had taken some steps toward controlling this phenomenon, such as creating a suicide hotline, and bringing monks to counter forces of evil.
The Foxconn Empire employs about a million people, in the city of Shenzhen, across the city of Hong Kong. The premises of the industry contain 15 manufacturing buildings and they have dedicated one building to each customer. It was in these buildings where the suicides took place. The company made public a statement where it said that they have avoided a further 20 suicides. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple upon hearing about the tragedy said that he found this incident very troubling and also mentioned that Apple always strives to provide the best jobs in a company with regard to understanding the working condition under the company’s supply chain. There has been an alarming increase in the number of suicides, whose reasons are still not apparent. The culture of the workforce at Foxconn has been described as being run similar to a military.
The main reason for Foxconn being under the spotlight was because of its unethical management and working conditions which has been considered as the root cause of the deaths and suicides in the past one year. A report explains the toiling and the exhaustion caused by 12-hour shifts, workers prohibited from talking or interacting with co-workers and the pressure of just-in-time production in order to meet with the high demand. SACOM held a protest on the 8th of June which was the same day Apple launched its iPhone 4. The demand of the protests initiated by the activists was to boycott all the Foxconn products.
Furthermore, a Chinese undercover team, filtered through the Longhua plant and gave the reporters they entire scenario of the industry. They reported by stating that the facilities were adequate but highly criticized their management. Hundreds of people work in the workshops and did not have the permission to even talk to their colleagues. If so found, they would get a black mark in their record, be shouted at by their manager or even be fined. The report was followed adding Foxconn’s laying off of more than ten thousand workers due to the financial downturn and had been pressured to meet up with the demand of the Apple iPad due to its monumental success. The iPad appears to have placed immense strain on Foxconn workers which resulted in them in quitting jobs at the rate of 15,000 a month. The workers in the factory need practice to become really efficient and the new staff has to keep up.
The workers that were asked about the working conditions stated that their hands would still keep on twitching when they are not working and mimic the motion as they were not able to relax their minds. The workers worked for an average of 120 hours per month, exceeding the limit set by Apply by 70 hours. Foxconn management style was regarded as severe and obstructed the code of ethics for managing employees. Apple therefore was urged upon to take appropriate steps if they were concerned about the health and safety of the workers.
Nevertheless, Apple has taken this issue into strict consideration and has urged Foxconn to do the same. These tragedies threw a very undesirable spotlight on the labor practices of Foxconn. After a few months of this incident, Foxconn has pledged to enhance work conditions, increase the pay, take into consideration of allowing workers to live closer to their homes aswell as reduce overtime hours.
Apple Inc. regardless of the recent controversies with Foxconn has reacted well and taken action in this regard under the guidance of Steve Jobs. After tremendous pressure from the labor organization in China, Steve Jobs has given this matter of utmost importance and high priority. Nevertheless, the situation in the province of Longhua has shown to improve. The Labor Department has agreed upon increasing the wages and to provide better facilities to the workers all around. Apple has lived up to its reputation of living up to its strong supplier responsibility program and its supplier code of conduct.