Boycotting Apple? You Shouldn’t Stop There

Apple last week posted its most impressive revenue statement to date, and with it came renewed calls for a boycott of the company’s products. The reason I’m sure will come as no surprise. Foxconn has been in the news many times over the past year or so due to its abnormally high rate of employee suicides and poor worker conditions, and since it manufactures most of Apple’s products, it’s not hard to make the connection.

A thought-provoking article was posted to CNET over the weekend that takes a look at the situation from a rather neutral standpoint. The author’s thought is this: if you boycott Apple, you shouldn’t stop there. Why? Because most of the products you are using come straight from China. The monitor you’re looking at, the keyboard you’re typing on, the cell phone next to you… all likely from China. Even the coffee mug I am drinking out of is made in China!

This reasoning isn’t brought up to make excuses for Apple, but to draw forward the fact that this isn’t an issue limited to Apple or Foxconn. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if other factories in China suffered the same poor worker conditions and high suicide rates. It’s just that Apple is such a prominent player that the problem has been more exposed as a result.

That said, the worker conditions in much of China is enough to make your stomach turn, and unfortunately there’s no easy solution. Why do companies like Apple go to China to have their products manufactured? Any for-profit company looks for ways to increase their revenue, and Apple is no exception.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. While Apple can’t easily tell Foxconn what to do, the company could influence it and help to make things better for employees there. But of course, that would never mean more money for these hard-working employees, because that would hurt Apple’s revenue (and cause us outside of China to complain about higher prices). Companies like Apple won’t just shift manufacturing to North America, either, because that instantly equates to less revenue.

It’s not an easy subject to discuss/debate, to be sure. It’s even tougher to vow your support for Chinese workers, too, and harder even still to not purchase anything from China (and similar countries). The term “Buy American” can only go so far, and it’s issues like these where that becomes really clear.