DO APPLE, MICROSOFT AND SONY CARE? DO YOU?

For Westerners, the conditions are shocking. Workers slave away for hours on end, pulling overtime, until their legs swell or they suffer from crippling disabilities.

Our iPhones and game electronics are made by hand, probably because it's cheaper to pay a worker in China to fit, solder, and polish products than it would be to create a robot dedicated to the task. Moreover, that steady stream of redesigns would be costly—or impossible.

Yet, it's not just the cheap wages. It's the tiny dormitories stuffed with people, the cameras tracking their every moment, a State government that imprisons people for joining unions, and, according to The New York Times, banners in the factories that read, "Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow."

Former Apple supply manager Jennifer Rigoni asked The New York Times, "What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms?"

Foxconn runs an entire ecosystem that's designed with one purpose in mind: make electronics quickly and cheaply for foreign clients like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for you and me to buy. Your iPhone, your Wii, your Xbox 360, and your PS3 are all made at Foxconn factories. But do these foreign clients really care? Do you?

With the increased focus on Foxconn and its work practices, its foreign clients, the Apples of the world, are becoming more open about their relationship with their suppliers.

Apple released a detailed report earlier this month (viewable at the link below) in which the company openly discussed working conditions and its on site audits. Nintendo and Microsoft have corporate responsibility statements of their own (also viewable at the original site). However, as this recent New York Times article underscores, Apple has gotten most of the attention and public outcry regarding work conditions at Foxconn's plants. This is due to several incidents on Foxconn's Apple product lines, including an explosion that killed two.

The explosion was caused by aluminum dust, inadequate protection, and poor ventilation. One activist group, Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, videotaped Foxconn workers covered in aluminum dust, The New York Times reported, and sent a copy to Apple. "There was no response," said the group's Debby Chan Sze Wan. "A few months later I went to Cupertino, and went into the Apple lobby, but no one would meet with me. I've never heard from anyone from Apple at all." The explosion, later blamed on aluminum dust build up, killed 2 and injured at least 16 others. Foxconn later replaced the ventilation at this factory.

"Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost," Li Mingqi told The New York Times. Mingqi is a former Foxconn manager who worked at this plant who is currently suing Foxconn over unfair dismissal. "Workers' welfare has nothing to do with their interests."

One former Apple executive said that Apple has known about the labor abuses for years—and that they're still going on.

There are other stories, stories of underage workers, and stories of workers becoming injured and disfigured, even, while making Apple products. Apple, in its recent suppliers report, stated it was auditing factories. Yet, as The New York Times pointed out, half of the suppliers Apple audited continue to violate the code of conduct every single year. And Apple continues to do business with these companies.

And so does Nintendo. And so does Microsoft. And so does Sony. And so do a whole bunch of companies. If Apple is being this open about its suppliers and how it is addressing work infractions, imagine how bad conditions at on the other supply lines.

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