Mike Daisey has released the script of his controversial monologue on the Internet
Even as he performs an extended stay of his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the New York Public Theater, Mike Daisey has done a rare thing for a professional writer and performer. He has released the full text of his controversial exposé of working conditions in China's electronics factories, inviting anyone who is interested to read, adapt, re-publish or perform it, in whole or in part.
"I've already received requests from more than 500 groups in 11 countries," he says, "from mid-size regional theaters to a small community in Kurdistan on the Iraq border."
You can download the pdf here.
"I don't require credit," he says, "but I do ask for it. And I do request that you let us know when you use it."
The show, which debuted last January at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, helped draw worldwide attention to the low pay, long hours and, according to Daisey, underage workers in Foxconn's Shenzhen factories. Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, assembles roughly 40% of the devices sold under such U.S. brands as Apple (AAPL), Cisco (CSCO), Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Intel (INTC), Microsoft (MSFT) and Motorola Mobility (MMI).
Foxconn has recently raised its wages and, at Apple's request, opened its doors to a camera crew from ABC's Nightline (see here). The moves followed a widely read series in the New York Times and the publicity generated by Daisey's monologue, which was excerpted for radio and broadcast in January on PRI's This American Life.
"The Mira Hotel in Kowloon, Hong Kong," Daisey's piece begins, "is exquisitely designed. It's like the inside of a sailing ship: everything has a place and everything is in its place. I actually find myself opening and closing the little drawers just to see the intricate way they're fitted together … I can't help it. It's just the way I'm wired."
Click here for the rest.
Bill Weir dons a bunny suit and takes a camera into Foxconn's Shenzhen facilities
Click for video
With Apple's (AAPL) permission, Foxconn for the first time allowed a reporter and his camera crew into its famous Shenzhen, China, factory complex. The 17-minute report aired Tuesday night.
Apart from some details about the production processes (it takes 141 steps, mostly done by hand, to assemble an iPhone) there's little news here that wasn't MORE
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Inside a Foxconn factory. Photo: Karson Yiu/ABC News
* Apple (AAPL) granted ABC's Nightline unfettered access to a Foxconn factory. Here's a preview of what they found. (The full segment airs this evening at 11:35 PM EST and PST. (ABC News via Fortune)
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Weir at Foxconn. Source: ABC
Four years ago, when I first starting writing about Foxconn, it was almost impossible to get a photo of the factory workers who assemble 40% of the world's electronic devices.
Now, 18 suicides, two fatal explosions, an off-Broadway show and a New York Times exposé later, Foxconn has opened the MORE
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"An Apple spokesman said no executives were available to comment."
That sentence, appearing 12 paragraphs into a 14-graph story by Brian X. Chen in Thursday's New York Times, speaks volumes about how Apple (AAPL) deals with press coverage it doesn't like.
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Foxconn workers. Source: Everything iCafe
"The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm."
That's Auret van Heerden, president of the Fair Labor Association, speaking to Reuters after an initial visit to the Foxconn factory where Apple's (AAPL) iPads are built.
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Maybe it was because I just got back from the return engagement of Mike Daisey's The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at The Public Theater of New York.
Or maybe the details in the New York Times series on working conditions in Shenzhen, China, hit too close to home.
But for MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Feb 2, 2012 11:05 AM ET
Its investigative series about how our electronic gadgets are made could be a contender
Aftermath of an explosion at an iPad factory in Chengdu, China
When monologist Mike Daisey flew to China to find out why the workers who assemble electronic devices for Apple (AAPL) -- and every other major U.S. manufacturer -- were jumping from the roofs of their factory-city dormitories, he was shocked to discover that most of the MORE
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Rick Santorum has a plan to save Apple (AAPL) from itself.
It came up during Thursday night's Republican presidential debate when CNN host John King -- a self-confessed Apple aficionado -- put this question to the former Senator from Pennsylvania:
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An addendum discloses for the first time the names of 156 Apple suppliers
From Apple's Supplier Responsibility Progress Report
Apple's (AAPL) sixth annual "supplier responsibility" report is sure to be closely read by both critics and competitors.
For one thing an addendum to the report lists for the first time the names of Apple's major subcontractors -- 156 companies, many in the Far East, representing 97% of the company's supply chain. The MORE
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