To keep up with iPhone and iPad Demands,Apple treating Workers Inhumanely...

Apple's Chinese workers treated 'inhumanely, like machines'Investigation finds evidence of draconian rules and excessive overtime to meet western demand for iPhones and iPads

Apple iPads on sale in London: in China, half a million workers paid about 65p an hour can exceed the 60-hour week limit to cope with demand.An investigation into the conditions of Chinese workers has revealed the shocking human cost of producing the must-have Apple iPhones and iPads that are now ubiquitous in the west.
The research, carried out by two NGOs, has revealed disturbing allegations of excessive working hours and draconian workplace rules at two major plants in southern China. It has also uncovered an "anti-suicide" pledge that workers at the two plants have been urged to sign, after a series of employee deaths last year.
The investigation gives a detailed picture of life for the 500,000 workers at the Shenzhen and Chengdu factories owned by Foxconn, which produces millions of Apple products each year. The report accuses Foxconn of treating workers "inhumanely, like machines".

■ Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.
■ Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.
■ In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.
■ Crowded workers' dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a "confession letter" after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: "It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again."

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So for everyone that cant seem to live without the newest iPhone or iPad,remember the people behind the merchandise..Think about how much you must pay for these items when the people that are making them are making no more than pennies a day...I dont have an iPhone or iPad but know people who cant live without them and I dont think they have ever stopped to think what actually goes into their newest items...I dont even own a cell phone because theres too much they can use against you if the time comes but anyway if I did I definately wouldnt be apart of the whole iphone craze..

I have no interest in getting one of those overpriced POS's And I refuse to buy my child one. If she continues to balk about it, I will in fact, send her to China and set her up to work at one of their facilities!

That is nothing new for Apple, they have pushing a lot of their workers hard for a very long time. As for the overtime in China, that happens a fair bit as well. I pass on any apple products as well.

You can't blame people for wanting the product, it is a great product. The demand for the product is not the problem. The problem is corporations trying to get more for less and therefore going to the countries where labor is cheap, with few worker rights, and setting up shops with less oversight and less bargaining ability to get humane working conditions. I personally have worked for a big corporation (bank) right here in the US that used their company outsourcing culture to skirt the law and get people (hourly contractors) to work overtime and on-call without pay. If you don't like it, you can go - there are a thousand others who will gladly take the job. Imagine how it goes in countries where they don't have the basic humane working conditions we have here to protect them. It says it right here in the article you posted:

"...manager Louis Woo confirmed that workers sometimes worked more than the statutory overtime limit to meet demand from western consumers, but claimed that all the extra hours were voluntary. Workers claim that, if they turn down excessive demands for overtime, they will be forced to rely on their basic wage: workers in Chengdu are paid only 1,350 yuan (£125) a month for a basic 48-hour week, equivalent to about 65p an hour."

Yeah, it's voluntary. Because if you don't do it, the next guy will.

Personally, I'm in favor of the US becoming more protectionist, stop giving the corps so much motivation to outsource overseas. Let's give them incentives to hire workers in the US. Let's discourage this glut of outsourcing. It would not only bring jobs back to our country, but also give us more control, since we currently don't produce much of the items we consume. Wouldn't it be nice to be more self-sufficient? Hell, we might even start being innovative and imaginative again...

They have a bad rep in the industry and will not attract high talent in the near future. I know several MBAs from top colleges who quickly ruled out their internship programs after one interview. Eventually it will catch up with them. They just are too blind to see it as the register keeps rinfging.