Case 5:19-cv-00036-RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 1 of 6 PageID #: 2757
`Case 5:19-cv-00036—RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 1 of 6 PageID #: 2757
`PUBLIC VERSION
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`EXHIBIT 4
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`EXHIBIT 4
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`Case 5:19-cv-00036-RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 2 of 6 PageID #: 2758
`How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class - The New York Times Page 1 of 5
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`How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the
`American Working Class
`
`By Vindu Goel
`
`Nov. 20, 2016
`
`AUSTIN, Tex. — During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald J.
`Trump complained that America had lost too many manufacturing jobs and
`promised to force big companies like Apple to bring that work home. “I’m going to
`get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in
`China,” he said.
`
`For a host of reasons, Apple is unlikely to produce iPhones in the United States. But
`opening a smartphone factory in this country is not the only way to provide solid
`employment for working-class Americans who lack college degrees.
`
`Apple’s overall contribution to the American economy is significant. Beyond the
`80,000 people it directly employs in the United States, it says 69 supplier facilities in
`33 states manufacture parts that go into its products. Hundreds of thousands of
`software developers also write apps for iPhones and iPads.
`
`Apple’s rapid growth here in central Texas, where it now employs about 6,000
`people, up from 2,100 seven years ago, provides a window into the vast constellation
`of jobs at the world’s largest technology company and their economic impact.
`
`At Apple’s sparkling new complex in northwest Austin, workers who are spread
`throughout seven limestone-and-glass buildings field about 8,000 customer tech-
`support calls a day, manage the company’s vast network of suppliers and figure out
`how to move around millions of iPhones a week to ensure they get into the hands of
`customers when they want them.
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`https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/how-apple-empowers-and-employs-the-a… 8/9/2019
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`Case 5:19-cv-00036-RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 3 of 6 PageID #: 2759
`How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class - The New York Times Page 2 of 5
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`Employees here help run Apple’s iTunes music and app stores, handle the billions of
`dollars going in and out of the company’s American operations and continuously
`update the Maps software that is integral to iPhones and iPads. At another Austin
`location, about 500 engineers work on the chips that will run the next round of
`Apple’s products.
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`The Austin campus — the company’s largest outside its headquarters in Cupertino,
`Calif. — offers plenty of perks, too. When employees are not working, they can
`lounge on chairs shaded from the Texas sun, dine at a two-story cafeteria that
`serves an abundance of food options, including barbecued ribs and banana-bread
`gelato, and visit a full-service medical clinic, which includes dentists, acupuncturists
`and a robot-assisted pharmacy.
`
`Although contractors at the Austin technical support call center earn as little as
`$14.50 an hour, equivalent to about $30,000 a year, many of them become
`permanent staff members, which means better pay, after the typical one-year
`contract is up. Experienced call center employees earn around $45,000 a year, plus
`generous benefits and small annual stock grants. Pay is even higher for more senior
`advisers and managers. Apple says that, excluding benefits and stock
`compensation, the average salary of its Austin employees, including management,
`is $77,000 a year.
`
`Apple declined to discuss its future expansion plans in Austin and in the United
`States.
`
`“Apple has created over two million jobs in the United States since the introduction
`of the iPhone nine years ago, including explosive growth in iOS developers,
`thousands of new supplier and manufacturing partners, and a 400 percent increase
`in our employee teams,” the company said in a statement. “We made the unique
`decision to keep and expand our contact centers for customers in the Americas in
`the United States, and Austin is home to many of those employees. We plan to
`continue to invest and grow across the U.S.”
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`https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/how-apple-empowers-and-employs-the-a… 8/9/2019
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`Case 5:19-cv-00036-RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 4 of 6 PageID #: 2760
`How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class - The New York Times Page 3 of 5
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`Last week, a reporter and photographer visited the Austin campus and interviewed
`more than a dozen workers, from managers to a prep cook on the kitchen staff.
`Apple’s public relations staff monitored some of the conversations, but others were
`unsupervised.
`
`Genny Lopez, who went to college for two years and used to work as a bartender,
`joined Apple as a contractor handling tech support calls. She is now on staff,
`troubleshooting difficult customer problems. “You don’t need a crazy technical
`background to do this job,” Ms. Lopez said. “A lot of the training is getting really
`good at talking to people.”
`
`Apple prides itself on providing top-notch phone service in 26 languages — 12 are
`spoken at the Texas call center alone — and the people who handle the calls are
`expected to follow up on any problem that cannot be quickly resolved. During the
`recent visit, Stephanie Dumareille, a senior adviser on iOS issues who is fluent in
`English and Spanish, patiently answered questions from a customer who was
`worried about saving her résumé online and did not know whether she was using a
`Windows or a Mac computer.
`
`Alan Marquis, a former Army officer,
`works in logistics at Apple’s campus in
`Austin, Tex.
`Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
`
`Employees say that Apple encourages them to move within and across teams, and
`the company is instituting a formal program to allow workers to try a completely
`different role for six months to see it if suits them and the company. Brisa Carillo,
`
`https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/how-apple-empowers-and-employs-the-a… 8/9/2019
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`Case 5:19-cv-00036-RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 5 of 6 PageID #: 2761
`How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class - The New York Times Page 4 of 5
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`who started out in the call center fresh out of college five years ago, now handles
`international payroll matters and is studying for her M.B.A. so she can move up the
`ranks of the finance department within Apple.
`
`The region’s economy has deep roots in technology and is home to a number of big
`tech employers, most notably Dell. Apple’s influence in the area extends beyond the
`people on its direct payroll. It has 350 suppliers in Texas alone.
`
`And about 3,400 construction workers helped build the Austin campus. Apple
`ensured that they all got paid at least $12 an hour. It also provided workers’
`compensation insurance and safety training, and it allowed the monitoring of
`conditions by an outside labor group, the Workers Defense Project, which has been
`trying to improve safety and pay in Texas construction.
`
`“There is a high road, and Apple followed that path,” said Bo Delp, director of the
`Better Builder program at the Workers Defense Project. “It sent a pretty strong
`message to others in Austin.”
`
`A mile from its Austin campus, Apple is involved in manufacturing, through Flex, a
`global contract manufacturer. Flex assembles Apple’s Mac Pro desktop computers
`to meet the exact requirements of customers, who can choose among more than
`4,000 combinations of features and hardware.
`
`Flex added about 2,000 jobs for the Apple project. Although Apple and Flex declined
`to discuss details of their arrangement, the assembly jobs start at $11 an hour and
`pay an average of about $30,000 a year, according to testimony by Flex officials in
`2014, when they sought government aid for the expansion.
`
`Apple could in theory build more products in the United States through contractors
`like Flex. But the company and industrial experts say that would be very difficult
`and could easily add $100 to the final cost of an iPhone. China has built a whole
`ecosystem of suppliers for nearly every electronic part imaginable. Vast pools of
`trained labor make it easy to quickly scale production up or down to meet demand.
`
`Larger products, or ones that require more customizing, such as PCs, make more
`sense to build close to the final customer.
`
`“It’s easy to ship a phone, and it’s harder to ship a computer,” said Andy Tsay, a
`professor at Santa Clara University who has studied global manufacturing patterns.
`“And it’s harder still for cars and refrigerators.”
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`https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/how-apple-empowers-and-employs-the-a… 8/9/2019
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`Case 5:19-cv-00036-RWS Document 66-5 Filed 08/27/19 Page 6 of 6 PageID #: 2762
`How Apple Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class - The New York Times Page 5 of 5
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`Over time, the value of Apple’s business is shifting away from hardware like the
`iPhone and into software such as apps and services like Apple Music, Mr. Tsay said.
`And those jobs can be much better for workers. “There are fewer industrial
`accidents working in a call center,” he said. “There is probably more gender equity.
`And it’s probably better for customers, too.”
`
`Alan Marquis, a former Army officer who spent a couple of years streamlining
`processes on a manufacturer’s assembly line before joining Apple, now manages
`part of the complex software that integrates Apple’s suppliers into the company’s
`production systems. “Here, there’s a lot more openness and creativity,” he said. “In
`manufacturing, it’s a lot more widgets dropping off the line.”
`
`Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, a Democrat, does not sweat the details of the jobs
`companies create in his city. He is more concerned that the work pays enough — at
`least $20 an hour — to support the city’s middle class, which is being squeezed by
`rising home prices.
`
`Some of the new jobs, like those at the Austin chip factory owned by Samsung,
`Apple’s biggest rival in the smartphone business, will be in manufacturing. Others,
`like the ones Apple brings, will be in services. “The best kind of jobs are those that
`allow someone to continue to grow and climb the ladder,” Mr. Adler said.
`
`Asked about Apple’s lack of manufacturing in the United States, Ms. Lopez said:
`“The product that Apple builds here is us.”
`
`Correction: Nov. 20, 2016
`An earlier version of this article misstated the education attained by Genny Lopez.
`She attended college for two years; she did not receive an associate’s degree.
`
`A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 21, 2016, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: How Apple
`Empowers, and Employs, the American Working Class
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`https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/how-apple-empowers-and-employs-the-a… 8/9/2019
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