Following over a century of protests, committee action, and local state amendments, child labor was regulated by the United States government in 1938 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act. For the first time in American history, minimum wages and ages, maximum hours, and the prohibition of “oppressive child labor,” became the law of the land. Amendments have only been added in the years since, assuring that most of us, staunch activists or stolid inactivists, rarely if ever think about the issue.
The same can’t said in China. Labor laws exist, granted, but regulation is sadly fickle at best. When electronic manufacturing giant Foxconn came out yesterday in admittance of underage hiring and rigorous, some say torturous child intern work practices, it wasn’t just unsurprising – it epitomized a downside of labor outsourcing that casts an awkward juxtaposition on so many consumer products enjoyed by millions worldwide.
One such product is the Nintendo Wii U.
Foxconn’s corporate partners run the technology gamut – Microsoft, Sony and Apple manufacture a variety of products through the Chinese firm as well – but the revelation that its interns were being exploited explicitly to meet the surging demand for Nintendo’s upcoming console placed questions about accountability squarely on The House That Mario Built’s back. No doubt aware of the mounting public pressure, it wasn’t long before Nintendo authored a response today to IGN, which is given below in full:
“Nintendo is in communication with Foxconn and is investigating the matter. We take our responsibilities as a global company very seriously and are committed to an ethical policy on sourcing, manufacture and labor. In order to ensure the continued fulfillment of our social responsibility throughout our supply chain, we established the Nintendo CSR Procurement Guidelines in July 2008.
We require that all production partners, including Foxconn, comply with these Guidelines, which are based on relevant laws, international standards and guidelines. If we were to find that any of our production partners did not meet our guidelines, we would require them to modify their practices according to Nintendo’s policy. For more information about Nintendo’s Corporate Social Responsibility report, please visit http://www.nintendo.co.jp/csr/en/index.html.”
In their grim statement to Reuters yesterday, Foxconn did emphasize that the transgressions were direct opposition with company policy, and that “immediate steps” were being taken to conciliate the interns. So considering the value Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Dell, Intel, HP, or any of the manufacturer’s associates are sure to receive from building their products at an outsourced location – value, likely, that makes the difference here between paying $3-500 for a console and, say, $1,000 – it’s hard to recommend one specific course of action. What becomes justified once the injustices become public?
Ranters, as our Ben Kendrick noted in Game Rant’s coverage yesterday, it’s disquieting, to say the least, that a company so predicated around kid-friendliness is so caught up in a scandal that’s anything but. What should Nintendo do now, even with Foxconn claiming to be addressing the situation?
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Follow me on Twitter @Brian_Sipple.
Wii U launches on November 18.
Source: IGN
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After reading what they’re doing with these poor kids..there’s not a way I’m gonna buy theyr console..what’s wrong with them?
Unfortunately this is more or less par for the course for FoxConn. Good luck doing anything about it though. Even if you don’t buy a Wii-U, I’ll guarantee that 95% of just about anything electronic contains some component(s) manufactured by FoxConn.
I really don’t care I’m still getting one!
Still getting one, ok…whatever…that’s your prerogative. That doesn’t change the fact that being a callous PoS is a great example of what’s wrong with society in this day and age.
ummm did you read foxconn did emphasize that the transgressions were direct opposition with company policy, and that “immediate steps” were being taken to conciliate the interns that states they violated Nintendos policys and knew it not nintendo asked them to do this
Never having to say that you’re sorry simply means never being caught…
i recently read up on these f***wits (foxconn) and they need to be removed from the face of the earth completely, i dont care if i have to pay more money (which wouldn’t make sense b/c everything they make is dirt cheap so we’re being ripped as it is) for my products if it means people dont have to suffer and die b/c of some dictatorship-like corporate a**holes.
i hear the place is so messed up that the people just going there have their wills crushed and dont even have the mindset to pack up and leave… poor people
FoxConn isn’t the only Asian-based company where workers are treated like slaves. Sad, but I guess that’s how it is until something changes.
While I do oppose the Work practices of a company like Foxconn, its the problems that force US laber to be so expensive that is actually causing jobs to be shipped overseas. Think, if you don’t have to pay as much to make something, then you can sell it for a lower price, this is why Outsourcing overseas is so efficient, labor laws in the United States make the production of products too expensive. I”m all for safety and limits on monopolies, but when you’re sacrificing jobs to “Increase the GDP” of a country, there’s something wrong. Relax the amount of Labor laws in effect and you’ll see a surge of growth in the industry, that’s why overseas companies are so huge and have so many jobs. And people need to stop complaining about Companies shipping jobs overseas, Its becuase the Jobs need to make money, and the only way to do that is to make cheap products and The current laws in the US don’t allow that.
TL;DR If people want cheap US products, The Labor Laws in the US need to be looked at and redone to promote US jobs rather than Shipping Jobs overseas for cheap labor.
I don’t think its the regulations as much as the minimum wage, or even what people are willing to work for.
You’re still either paying someone in the US at a minimum 7.25 an hour (give or take) or you pay someone there $28.00 for an entire day. Even with laxed labor laws, you cannot compete with such low wages, and if they did remove the minimum wages then you’d see the middle class dissapear all together.
There are issues here, but realistically the manufacturing jobs are not coming back, or at least not in force. China is trying to keep its middle class from even forming, but even they are begining to lose ground on that, which is going to kill their economy once people start demanding a livable wage and decent working conditions.
There are two separate issues here. I don’t think anyone is crazy upset that we outsource work to China. What they pay their workers is dictated by their economy. What we can do is say, if you want the work, your factories need to have ethical work hours and age limits. If a kid gets paid ten cents a day and he accepts that, that’s up to him. But all of our corporations that have incredible swing with this company can also say, “part of our arrangement is you don’t work children to death.” If every company, the majority of companies, or even just one very prominent company works that into their contract, you’ll see change.
But these corporations don’t care, and never have. They of course knew that this is something that Foxconn does. No one opens a major manufacturing contract with a company without knowing how that company works. Anyone who thinks Nintendo et al were magically unaware is silly.
Actually in politics the whole counter-slam idea of “your company outsourced to China” is getting a little bit of media attention. However the equation of production is actually only un-balanced right now because China is not yet a true 1st world country. When that happens who will build the shiny new toys then? Africans? How about when they finally get their act together? This can’t continue for long, but more to the point its a passing problem, and he only thing that should be handed out are really stiff punishments to companies that contract with places like Foxconn, to say nothing of Foxconn itself.
I’m happy that nintendo is at least saying something about it..I hope they do the right thing if nothing changes however.
They are usually a very ethical company…
Actually that’s not true. Nintendo is worst when it comes to using conflict minerals in their machines (think conflict diamonds)…lots of young Africans die for Nintendo machines.
http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/content/conflict-minerals-company?company=22
Yes, because they went out of their way to make sure they only used the finest of conflict minerals in their products.
No, because they do absolutely nothing to make sure that they don’t. Sorry you didn’t get that.
The way you and the site say it makes it sound like they go out of their way. Also, I would like to know where that website gets its information.
The site outlines all that they don’t do, but I see you like to bury your head in the sand…sad.
I feel it’s pretty unfair to blame any of the companies who worked with foxconn up to this point. Now however, it is on Nintendo, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and any others to make sure they will crack down on foxconn if this continues.
“We would require them to modify”
or more specifically not, “We would hold them accountable for the product already produced”, “We would not accept their product,” or “we expect to be compensated for the units they shipped that don’t meet our standards and must be discarded.”
Just the typical corporate, “they got caught and now, going forward as long as there is media attention, we will ask them to not have human rights violations politely but we have no statement to make as far as repercussions go.”
Wow its amazing how little outrage and discussion this thread generated. If this was about say…”womens rights” or about how we all feel about the way women are “exploited” in game sales…well we would be setting a record. But if its about underage workers being pressed into extra hours to manufacture our entertainment systems? Or the hazards risked by exploitative companies who maufacture them? Nah, its no big thing…after all, its not happening in our country. Some of you people really disgust me, your humanity runs only as deep as your political/personal agendas
Thanks GameRant for putting this up, to bad it did not bring any real attention from the ones who can actually make a difference. After all, enough bitching got Bank Of America out from under being named worst company IN America, and handed that honor to EAGames…who all to many of you still buy from.