Apple, whose manufacturing practices are under fire again this week, brings its factories to the forefront in a new video. One catch: There's not a human in sight.
Last week, Apple and its manufacturing partner, Foxconn, were accused once again of questionable labor practices — this time, for using allegedly forced and unpaid student labor. If you want to be either sensational or just very technical, that's called slavery.
The first video you see on the iPhone landing page talks a lot about manufacturing (we've clipped the whole section above), which is unusual for Apple, at least at this length. But rather than addressing labor concerns, or even offering soothing platitudes, it skirts them entirely. It projects an image of Apple's manufacturing processes as being utterly mechanized; of its factories as being sterile, robotic warehouses of automation. It is not workers that perform actions but a vague we — "we built a product," "we've developed processes," "we machine all of the surfaces." Where there is no we, there's plenty of passive voice: analysis "is done" and "the best match" "is determined." The video mostly just shows a phone on a pedestal — literally on a pedestal! — being perfected by machines.
It would be strange for Apple to address sensitive labor issues in a product launch video, of course. But this is nonetheless striking. "Labor" and "manufacturing" are two words that evoke bad feelings when paired with "Apple." This is an unfortunate way to try to remedy that.
For some counterprogramming, here's part of an account of what it's like in an iPhone factory, as told by an undercover journalist at the Shanghai Morning Post:
The first night sleeping at Foxconn dormitory is a nightmare. The whole dormitory smells like garbage when I walked in. It’s a mixed of overnight garbage smell plus dirty sweat and foam smell. Outside every room was fully piled up with uncleared trash. When I opened my wardrobe, lots of cockroaches crawl out from inside and the bedsheets that are being distributed to every new workers are full of dirts and ashes.
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