Although "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" performer Mike Daisey admitted last week that he made up reports that he saw child workers and guards with guns at the factories of Apple's Chinese manufacturing partner, Foxconn, working conditions at the company are still being watched closely.
According to a spokesman for the workers' rights group China Labor Bulletin, the workers who make iPads and iPhones still face long hours, abusive management, and unsafe working conditions, even after Apple allowed independent inspections of Foxconn plants.
"All those things are very much in place. I don't think there's been any alleviation in the past few months. I don't think Foxconn's done anything, really," he said.
Foxconn says that even though This American Life retracted Daisey's piece, the company's "corporate image has been totally ruined" by his allegations. Despite that claim, Foxconn isn't considering legal action.
Meanwhile, Daisey says that the admitted fabrications in his story don't invalidate his basic message about the poor conditions under which our iDevices are made remains true. On his blog, he promised to "make a full accounting" of his monologue's "origins, construction, and details."
"If people want to use me as an excuse to return to denialism about the state of our manufacturing, about the shape of our world, they are doing that to themselves," he wrote.
[reuters / mikedaisey]
