Thursday, September 8, 2016

Apple says it took "courage" to demand sweatshop workers build iPhones without headphone ports

SAN FRANCISCO (TYDN)— Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said Wednesday it took "courage" for the technology giant to get enough nerve to demand that the thousands of children enslaved in China factories produce its newest iPhone without a 3.5mm audio port, TheYellowDailyNews has learned.

"The reason to move on: courage. The courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us," Schiller said onstage here at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, as he announced that the new iPhone 7 would not come with a headphone jack.

"We were concerned that, if the assembly line workers objected, we would have had no recourse. What could we have done? We had no more room to dock their pay," Schiller said.
Phil Schiller explains "courage"

The 7,000 members of the Apple Faithful covering the iPhone unveiling fell head over heels. After all, Schiller's comments were a clear acknowledgement that Apple was finally taking human rights seriously, analysts said.

Now that Apple is removing the headphone jack, other phone makers will likely follow suit. That's another positive development for Chinese children working 16-hour days at overseas technology factories.

"This is a really great time to be a Chinese factory worker making mobile phones. Think about how much less cancerous dust the workers will have to breathe because they won't have to drill the headphone hole," Tina Stein, a human rights monitor for Amnesty International, told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview. "Apple's adoration for its factory workers takes my breath away."

Other analysts contacted by TheYellowDailyNews agreed—that Apple's decision to remove the headphone jack can only be good for assembly line workers.

"Apple has always been a leader, and now it is leading the charge for protecting the thousands of children who are slaving away building Apple products in dangerous conditions," technology analyst Jon Crackstein said in an exclusive interview with TheYellowDailyNews. "Let there be no mistake, this is likely to reduce the suicide rate of Apple assembly line workers at the Foxconn sweatshops by 6.79 percent, or more."

Still, other analysts told TheYellowDailyNews that Apple's decision will increase employment opportunities for overseas factory workers. That's because Apple is moving from an open standard to a closed one when it comes to how headphones plug into its iPhone—in this instance via the charging port instead of a headphone jack.

"Think of all the new headphones everybody is gonna have to buy now," Smith-Barney analyst Anita Bornstein told TheYellowDailyNews in an exclusive interview. "Sure, Apple makes magical devices. But all of these new headphones aren't going to be built by magic. This is all about job creation."