Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

That poster is ridiculously disingenuous.

First, 220 is the Chinese national average of all people, 18 is the amount of Foxconn employees that committed suicide at work. That's apples to oranges.

Then, for some reason, we move to workplace fatalities at Foxconn as compared to every U.S. industry, including far more dangerous tasks such as commercial fishing, law enforcement and rescue, and construction. Now we're at apples to silverware.

Then we're comparing average Foxconn salary in a high tech production job to the average Chinese salary of all industries. Apples to beagles.

That poster is pathetic.

The reason they quote per million workers is that Foxconn employs nearly one million people by itself.

So the comparison is per any million workers anywhere compared to the workers employed at Foxconn.

If it were taking all Chinese workers into account, the results would be vastly different, obviously. The point it is trying to make is that Foxconn workers are better off than the general Chinese population of workers.

I don't agree with the obvious bias either. It also isn't a very clear comparison.

For everyone asking "why target Apple", the petition explains it: Apple is the biggest. Getting them to change their requirements for suppliers would change the paradigm.

For everyone asking "why target Apple", the petition explains it: Apple is the biggest. Getting them to change their requirements for suppliers would change the paradigm.

You miss the point. I'm not pointing out the "per million" status as being an issue. I'm pointing out that they're comparing total Chinese suicides at ALL TIMES to amount of suicides AT THEIR BUILDINGS

Apple's not the biggest.

They just had their biggest quarter ever, so people have to start knocking on them.

Oh, you know why. It's because they make insanely more money than any one else. They just had their biggest quarter ever, so people have to start knocking on them.

That's where they live.

Apples to beagles.

I can find no information that states that their entire 800,000 person workforce lives in dormitories, but I'll let that go on reasonable doubt.

If you're going to boycott/petition Apple, why not LG? Samsung? Sony? Intel? Any other company that places plants in, contracts with, or buys parts from a manufacturing facility in China or another foreign nation with ample cheap labor?

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

...


It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.


....


Some of that wealth has gone to shareholders. Apple is among the most widely held stocks, and the rising share price has benefited millions of individual investors, 401(k)’s and pension plans. The bounty has also enriched Apple workers. Last fiscal year, in addition to their salaries, Apple’s employees and directors received stock worth $2 billion and exercised or vested stock and options worth an added $1.4 billion.

The biggest rewards, however, have often gone to Apple’s top employees. Mr. Cook, Apple’s chief, last year received stock grants — which vest over a 10-year period — that, at today’s share price, would be worth $427 million, and his salary was raised to $1.4 million. In 2010, Mr. Cook’s compensation package was valued at $59 million, according to Apple’s security filings.