Social Media Responsibility, Manufacturing on Apple’s Scale – TMO Daily Observations 2019-01-28
Bryan Chaffin and Charlotte Henry join host Kelly Guimont to discuss responsibility in social media and manufacturing on Apple’s scale.
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Western Electric is a good example of high volume manufacturing to scale that was at Hawthorne Works, Cicero, IL (Chicago), Kearny Works in Kearny New Jersey, Columbus Works, Columbus Ohio. These facilities made everything from scratch. Fabricated their own metal for chassis, manufactured their own wire and cable, did all assembly.
Hawthorne works was essentially a city within itself with its own fire department and post office. Housing was provided by the Chicago southwest side and the suburbs of Cicero and Berwyn. This was at its zenith post World War II. Jobs were unionized thus no one complained of slave labor, jobs were virtually for life, people put their kids through school with very little student loan dept.
Fast forward to the mid 80s (Ronald Reagan era), it was decided to outsource manufacturing too 3rd parties initially in the U.S., then Mexico and finally to China. Tooling was dismantled and or reinvested in Mexico and then China simply for cost as a work-around to organized labor. So, fast-forwarding to today, the Chinese manufacturing might is a culmination of 35 + years of U.S. manufactures as well as western European manufactures use of cheap maybe even slave labor. Tooling can be redirected back to the U.S. if the corporate America were willing but they’re just not willing to do this.
I do agree that moving manufacturing back to the U.S. in a matter of months and or years is not very likely but it doesn’t mean that we should just give up on the concept just because we’re not going to permit slave labor in the U.S.. It took 30 + years to move manufacturing to China. Realistically in the early 21st century we should be able to reinvest in U.S. manufacturing to scale in a 10 to 15 year period without the institution of slave labor as we see in China. This needs to be done to solidify U.S. security as well as providing jobs for U.S. citizens.
Everyone on this site is an Apple Fan but to Foxcon model is something that Apple should not be giving approval to simply because it saves them money and provides a pay-day for Apples CEO and high end managers. Instead of using stock buy-backs to feather the nests of the Apple execs, this money should be used to invest in high tech manufacturing in the U.S.