Apple Inc.

: Severe Employee Abuse (2011)

AppleInc.:SevereEmployeeAbuse(2011)
BasedonapaperbyCodyWopschall
SummarybyCodyWopschall

Apple Inc., in 2011, were

accused of treating their employees inhumanly and like
machines. To cut costs and increase profits, Apple hired roughly
500,000 employees and started to manufacture their products at
two factories in southern China. At the plants in Shenzhen
and Chengdu, there were reported complaints about the
conditions within and around the working areas. Once
investigated, the truth was much worse than the speculation.
There were multiple cases of unethical behavior from Apple and
the terrible things they put the employees through. Before an
employee can work for Apple, they must sign an anti-suicide
contract pledging that they will not attempt to commit suicide due
to the large number of deaths in 2011. Once they get hired, they
will most likely work excessive amounts of overtime. Chinese law
states that an employee must not work more than 36 hours of
overtime during a month. Apple makes employees work around
98 hours of overtime, almost three times as much. Workers also
can only take one day off every two weeks. The normal wages for
an employee are around $17-$22 a day. As you might already
know, Apple has many products around the world and because of
that, there's a constant demand for iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Mac
Computers. To keep up with the demand, Apple built living
dormitories near the factories for employees to live in. These

buildings have hundreds of dorms, each of which is not very

spacious. Around 24 people are assigned to a room and are
subject to be woken up at anytime for work, sort of like basic
training in the military. Just days before the first iPhone was
released, Steve Jobs made a call to switch the iPhone screens
from plastic to glass. The workers were woken up at 3 a.m., given
brief instructions on how to use glass cleaning chemicals and
other procedures, and began mass production of the phones.
Situations like this make life absolutely miserable for employees
of the plants. Even if someone wanted to end their life, Apple
installed anti-suicide nets on the outside of all the dorm windows
so that the people would be caught and brought back to work.
The events going on in southern China are upsetting and
disturbing. Apple's actions will now be analyzed using the four
ethical theories.

The actions taken by Apple

violated most of the four ethical theories. The Economic or
Individualism Theory states that people high up in a company
need to do everything in their power to satisfy the needs
of profitability for their owner(s) and shareholders. This is the
only theory that Apple doesn't violate. Although what they are
doing is insensitive and inappropriate, they are making more
money for their owner(s) and shareholders by minimizing costs
and maximizing profits. By going overseas, they have more
flexibility on the laws, pay the workers less, and can make the
employees work more hours. Utilitarianism is the view that one
should do things to maximize happiness for themselves and for
others. Majority of the people who work in the plants feel upset

and are depressed because of the conditions. When this story

broke out, it somewhat stained the reputation of the Apple brand.
Some loyal customers might view Apple now as a terrible and
unethical company and therefor buy other brands of computers,
phones, and so on. This means less money for the owner(s)
which will lower the price per share and will take money away
from the shareholders as well. In doing so, this will make the
shareholders and the owner(s) both unhappy. Apple breaks this
theory because everyone involved is unhappy, to some degree,
with what went on. The Kantian Theory says that one should act
rationally while making business decisions, respect people and
help them make rational decisions, and to do these good things
for the fact that it is the right thing to do. Before this story came
out, no one knew of the horrible events that were taking place.
Apple began this operation behind closed doors and as long as
the public had no idea, they continued to operate in this manner.
They disrespected the employees and made life hard for them.
Apple ran these plants only for personal gain and to step on
everyone who helped them along the way. They even lied to
consumers by putting up the false front about being an ethical
company. If they personally told the public about what they were
doing, mostly no one would buy their products. The final theory
that Apple violated was the Virtue Theory. This theory states that
one should do something in a virtuous and character-like way as
well as abiding by the four virtues of courage, honesty,
temperance, and justice. Apple had no courage to stop what they
were doing because it was wrong and unethical. They were not
honest to the consumers and the shareholders about what was
going on. Temperance was violated because the amount of
expectation for each employee was unreasonable. There was also
no justice for the employees because Apple did not apologize or
compensate them for their terrible treatment.

Apple needs to understand that

employees on an assembly line are people, not machines. They have feelings,
they get tired, and they have rights. Apple went out of their way and did a lot of
unethical things just to make a bigger profit. A big corporation such as Apple
should have more consideration for the people who truly made them a big
company. Is ruining the lives of nearly a half of million people really worth
making more money?