Mike Daisey

Apple iPad plant is 'way, way above average' says inspector

It's not a pressure-cooker environment that is the problem, but boredom and alienation

"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.

Apple has been hit with a barrage of criticism over the working conditions in the Chinese factories where its MORE

Conan O'Brien finds humor in suicides at the iPhone factories

Team Coco's video bits can be hit or miss. The one about Apple's iNett was a miss. 

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 me the video sketch about MORE

Apple in China: The New York Times goes for the Pulitzer

Its investigative series about how our electronic gadgets are made could be a contender

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 American reporters writing about the suicides had never visited the plants MORE

Apple factory inspections turn up scores of labor violations

An addendum discloses for the first time the names of 156 Apple suppliers

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 list is available here for anyone MORE

Excerpted for radio: The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

A 60-minute version of Mike Daisey's one-man show is now available online

UPDATE: This American Life retracted the episode described below. See here.

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If you couldn't make it to the Berkeley Rep or Washington's Wooly Mammoth or New York's Public Theater to catch monologist Mike Daisey's brilliant, funny, disturbing report on working conditions in the Shenzhen factories where most of Apple's (AAPL) products are assembled, Ira Glass has done you MORE

Apple's workplace violations report

Its own audit found toxic chemicals, underage workers, bribery and falsified records

"Foxconn is not a sweatshop," Steve Jobs told the audience at All Things Digital last June, speaking of the world's largest electronics manufacturer and Apple's (AAPL) primary supplier of iPhones, iPads, iPods and Macs.

But the company's 2011 Supplier Responsibility progress report, issued earlier this week, found plenty of room for improvement in its extensive Asian supply chain. In first-time MORE

A harsh light on Apple's supply chain

Mike Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" is a cry for labor reform in China

UPDATE (March 17, 2012): Unfortunately, it is now going to be easier than it should be to dismiss Mike Daisey's message. It turns out that much of what he passed off as factual reporting was a concoction of things he had seen, things he had read about, things he had heard about and MORE

Steve Jobs' misunderstood monologuist

The agony and the ecstasy of a storyteller who bleeds in six colors

"If you are a tech journalist writing about 'The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,' " begins Thursday's entry in Mike Daisey's long-running blog (first entry: August, 2001):

My last name is spelled Daisey.
I will not be playing the "role" of Steve Jobs. The monologue concerns Steve Jobs' rise and fall and rise, Apple, industrial design, and the MORE