Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China

This is indeed a "minor headache" for Apple to deal with:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=all

New York Times' "reporting" is full of hot air, warts, farts et al.

Apple has become a huge ecosystem and they zealously guard it. Silicon
Valley is a huge echo chamber because of the multitude of people willing
to rub shoulders with people who can spare cash to launch careers. Apple
knows the game and plays it very well spawning a huge enterprise of
people writing about it favorably.

Apple doesn't care two hoots about the "supply side" code violations
because all that matters is the bottom line.

The real reason perhaps is the migration of jobs away from America.
Obama has said nothing about such issues but rather makes headlines for
jobs being "bangalored". Manufacturing phones needs huge labor willing
to work for a pittance. Imagine Apple setting up sweat shops there in
US; paying less than $8 per hour to the white man sans medical,
insurance, paid leaves and other benefits. It would quickly go
"bankrupt". Not to imagine the "class-action suits" and Tim Cook (the
"supply side specialist") being hauled on hot burning coals for these
transgressions. Hence they prefer to hire their fancy PR specialists to
turn the tide in their favor; trick accounting practise's to show
"handsome quarterly profits" and being the "darling of the tech media
and consumers".

The slave labor has taken other meaning in these days and times.
Affirmative action has ensured that blacks don't get called as "niggers"
but rather euphemistically as "racial minorities" or
"African-Americans". Chinese (and Indians) are the next generation
slaves. All this is quietly hushed under "supply efficiencies" and
"capitalism". I am expecting automation of key components down the line
where human labor would be replaced by robots and other machines
rendering such issues useless in the coming years. Hence, this hot air
from New York Times is definitely a headache, but very unlikely to
affect Apple in the long run. For everything that you hold (most of the
electronics anyway), are being manufactured in China. Ditto for Nike,
Addidas, Blackberry, Samsung, Sony etc. Have they ever responded to
charges of child labor? If yes, has it affected the sales of these
multi-billion dollar corporations? No.

The first world is going to balk at what they are going to read, but
still going to show off the next generation of iPhone (I consider that a
useless piece of technology- it's just a pretty interface, that's all).
This is sheer duplicity; but then these are first world problems.

The Chinese are not going to loose their sleep on this. Why? Because
their burgeoning population is a good way to fuel the human organ
markets. So what if people get killed? Hunt down their organs and make
huge profits in the process. Their priorities lie elsewhere.

So what do these corporations do? Call up their PR agents, discredit the
story, launch FUD campaigns or fund the next conference more vigorously
calling it "effective engagement" with people bought to write for them
or feeding their fanboys more aggressively.