There was a New York Times article today about Apple and its outsourcing overseas–you may have seen it the article.  But there were some issues the article tripped past just a wee bit too lightly.

Per the article, Apple employs 763,000 workers, of whom 43,000 are U.S. employees, giving a total of only 5% U.S. employees.

“Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that ‘Made in the U.S.A.’  is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.”

If this is true, I can see why a business would prefer to set up operations overseas. If you owned a business, wouldn’t you? Unless there were some sort of advantages to being an American business…Like benefits America bestows on corporations or to their employees…hmmm… Any tax breaks given to American businesses which are not given to those of other countries? How about access to the American market for its goods and services, free of import tariffs?

It’s too bad our government is currently allowing equal access to our American market to both American companies and to foreign companies such as Apple.  What, Apple?  You say you’re ARE an American company?  What makes you one?  Your employees are foreigners.  Your operations are performed overseas.  How are you different from a foreign company?  Oh–that’s right:  You are getting American company breaks.]

“Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option.”

Their only option? Really? Their collective backs are against the wall? Does this mean their company is about to fail and their shareholders are at their throats? I mean, I’m just thinking of that $400,000 profit per employee, now. And the fact that they’re reaping the tax benefits of being an American corporation although they are not one, and have been reaping these for quite some time. And that their top level employees—their actual, rather than virtual American employees—have been enjoying the American lifestyle at the top of the food chain over here.  I’m just not so clear on what Apple means by “their only option”.

Couldn’t some of that $400,000 per employee have been shaved off to go into apprenticeships to talented highschool and college students here? In America? Or even untalented ones who tested well for the vocational/industrial aptitude skills needed to run efficient Apple factories here?

Could it be that this is your “only option” if your company’s only motivation is profit untempered by morals, and you have no scruples about eating the hand that is allowing you to feed upon it?

“One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves.  Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul.

Yummy.

Said an Apple executive:  “The speed and flexibility is breathtaking…There’s no American plant that can match that.”

So, let me get this really clear:
Apple has taken its firm back to the days of the great robber-baron industrialists, with company dormitories, and the 12-hour workday—and Apple is proud of it. Boasting about it:  How they can depend upon being able to roust their human machines from their Company beds in the middle of the night and prime these pumps for a 12-hour run with just hot tea and a cracker. How is a real human being to respond?  Let me try: 

None of the top-echelon Apple employees would consider this to be appropriate treatment for an adult child of their own, or anyone else they cared about.  The fact that they consider it perfectly acceptable treatment for brown-skinned foreigners whom they never intend to see is dashed disturbing.   (Oh, but it’s perfectly all right, because a higher standard of living is brought to those they serve–perhaps like the British served the Indians?)

Think I’ll Eat About 99% of This.”

Postscript:

At the end of the NYT article was this:

“Companies once felt an obligation to support American workers, even when it wasn’t the best financial choice,” said Betsey Stevenson, the chief economist at the Labor Department until last September. “That’s disappeared.  Profits and efficiency have trumped generosity.”

WHOAA!!!  This is the department that is supposed to be helping American workers??!!  Betsey’s viewpoint comes through as skewed toward the business end.  She refers to Company dormitories, and tea and cracker fuel, as “efficiency”.   She considers normal humane treatment of employees to be “generosity”.  I’m sure she’s a very lovely person, but she has been working with the barons too long.  Probably without her being aware of it, their perspective has polluted her thinking.

Apparently, google and Wikipedia also need re-education.  The Wikipedia entry for “robber baron” is entitled “robber baron (industrialist)”.  And if you enter “robber barons” into google’s search box, google asks you if want “robber barons or captains of industry”.

Which Is It?

We should be far past the days when we had cause to consider all these terms equivalent.

2014-03–Deleted an entire paragraph. Post was too nerdy wordy.
2014-02–Replaced an illustration that had been removed from the web.