Global Network Urges Electronics Supply Chain to Respect Workers’ Rights
Published on November 13, 2010While owners of big name brands ranging from Apple to Nokia to HP and JVC Kenwood roost in their headquarters in the US or Europe and try to outdo each other in bragging about their latest research and development, their supply chain around the world is comprised of different outsourcing companies vying for the contract to manufacture their required parts at the lowest production costs possible.
By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – Some of the most requested gifts these coming holidays are electronic gadgets. This early, shops are already bedecked in tinsel and promos to lure buyers of the latest televisions, digicams, cellphones, music players, computers from desktop to laptop to netbook to its latest evolutions such as the likes of Ipads, e-book readers and tablet PCS.
In ads of big brand names such as Nokia, Apple, HP, Dell, Sony and Sony Ericsson, JVC, Samsung, among others, these electronic gadgets are credited for “connecting people” if not shrinking the distance between people. But while these gadgets are being marketed for doing that – connecting people – the process of producing them involves a fragmented global supply chain, where big brand names outsource their supplies and parts from different manufacturing plants located all over the world.
Big manufacturers, which are mostly located in export processing zones, strive to produce according to strict specifications but in the cheapest possible cost of production, so they could reap profits despite having lowered their contract price to bag the outsourcing contract.
The result, said an international network of labor and human rights advocates, is “sweatshop conditions under harsh management, without the protection of trade unions.” The international network calls itself as Good Electronics. When asked, Pauleen Overeem, one of its leaders, said there is really no such thing as “good electronics,” if by good you mean electronics that are manufactured in conditions that respect human and labor rights and the environment..... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101113com3.html
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