Response to “the woman who nearly died making your iPad”

This news article, published in The Guardian in 2013, was written by Aditya Chakrabortty. She writes about the incident concerning Tian Yu, a Foxconn employee, throwing herself out of her factory dormitory in southern China. For about a month, Yu has worked on parts for Apple iPhones and iPads. These products end up in British and American homes. The audience that this article is trying to reach is anyone in Britain or America that owns an iPhone or an iPad. Chakrabortty wants to show us Apple users how the product is really made and how the people that make the product are treated. That year (2010), 18 other workers younger than 25, attempted suicide. Reporters tried to find out what was going on in Apple’s supply chain. They found out how bad the conditions were, but nothing was ever done to really make a change. Foxconn workers rarely spoke out. Yu was interviewed and it showed us how these companies rely on “a human battery farming system” that employs young, poor migrants from China. They crowd them into terrible working conditions, force them to work long hours and kick out the ones who can’t keep up. Yu jumped out of the window when her bosses didn’t pay her months labor wages.

This article highlights how badly workers are treated by Foxconn just to make the products that us Americans and Britain use. It also shows us how not much is being done to change this. Apple CEO Tim Cook called on Foxconn to improve their working conditions, but no records show him providing monetary assistance. Yu received a “humanitarian payment” but just like her father said, they were basically buying and selling a thing to make the situation go away. We need to be aware that the products we are using everyday are made by innocent and mistreated people that are so young in age, and no one is actively doing anything about it.

The goal of this article is to raise American and British awareness of the Foxconn mistreatment of its workers. Since Apple is such a huge company, this article applies to millions of people. It definitely tries to pull at the emotions of its audience because we are holding these products everyday that were made by depressed and hopeless workers. Imagine holding your iPad that was made by someone who committed suicide after Foxconn pushed them towards desperation. It’s definitely not a good feeling to have, which is why this article is trying to get people to realize that Apple needs to change how Foxconn is treating their workers, and we need to initiate that change.

I thought that this piece was very eye opening. I never knew how badly the conditions were and how many young workers committed suicide because of it. Tian Yu opening up about her experience was definitely shocking to read and the fact that Apple has not been actively trying to change things shows me that all they care about is pumping out as many products as possible each day. I appreciated how Chakrabortty incorporated a real story about Yu into the article. It made it more emotional and really hit home how the products your holding may be amazing, but the way they are made is not. This connects to my own experience because I have an iPhone and an iPad and just thinking about who made my product back in China is scary. There needs to be something done about this because no worker should have to go through what these young Chinese migrants are going through. A question I would like to ask would be, how would we go about making this change, especially when Apple refuses to answer questions regarding this? It’s a tough situation and I think in order to make a change happen, we need as many people involved as possible, which this article is getting at.