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Foxconn Workers Getting Raise With Apple Subsidies
hackingbear writes "Workers at Taiwanese electronic outsourcing manufacturer Foxconn are getting a pay raise after a series of 13 suicides, including three in three consecutive days. According to an article by state-run newspaper China Daily, Apple concluded that the main cause of the suicides is low wages. (The media has also attributed the suicides to a variety of other factors — everything from the semi-military style of management, to long overtime, to China's one-child policy, and Foxconn paying too much compensation to the family of suicide workers, thereby encouraging copycat suicides.) Apple plans to subsidize raises using its own products (Google translation; Chinese original here) — the first one being the iPad. This would raise the outsourcing cost from 2.3% to 3% of the iPad's sales price. The article does not say the amount of the raise per worker, but it is rumored to be about 20%, according to other Chinese news sources."
Now Apple will jack up the price on iPads by 20%!
Sopssa is a troll. Remember it moderators.
...is the root of all evil."
Shame on you Apple and all your fanbois.
That enough of their souls are still poured into these incredible, sleek products to maintain the extremely high level of magic and wonder we've become accustomed to finding in each amazingly designed box.
Because despite the fact that FoxConn make stuff for all sorts of people in the consumer electronics world, all the bile and invective seems to fall on Apple's shoulders.
No doubt, Apple actually trying to help will be seen negatively too - let's see if any of the subsequent comments say so (my money's on yes...). Honestly, the anyone-but-apple brigade make the fanboys look calm, collected, and sane.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.
The other companies that are getting their components from Foxconn? Are they doing anything?
-- Linux user #369862
Foxconn also sells branded mainboards of their own, etc. How about they just increase the pay at their factories, and up prices a buck or two? Two bucks means nothing to me, if they want to pass that onto the consumer I'm willing to open my wallet.
I wish my coworkers jumped off the building.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Encourage more suicides? Yeah, I'm gonna kill myself for more pay
I'm under the impression that the workers there already make relatively more than most similar jobs, and a 20% raise doesn't seem like it will make much of a life-changing difference for anyone (especially if they don't have time to spend it :P)
And just how far can money go to compensate you for hellish working conditions?
So why not give them some more breaks / shorter hours each day?
G.
If they increase the salaries over the market, then the competition of workers for getting a job in that factory will increase, thus leading to more stress/overworking/stajanovism/burn-out/suicides... This is the kind of stupidity that unions usually advocate for. It is however very good if you have your post warranted for life, for example if you are a french functionarie (public servant). Of course, the people who are trying to get a permanent post in that factory will have a toughter live (think for example of the young residents trying to get a job in medicine, or graduate students). Ah, if only the salaries in my profession would go down...
but it got rejected.
Honda is raising wages due to a strike. Let's hope this catches on (no, not the suicides, though I admit it's an interesting tactic).. Good to see people standing up for their rights.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'm sure they're happy to have a bit more money but if you're working serious overtime I'd think they'd rather work fewer hours rather than some pittance of a pay rise.
I got curious as to how Foxconn's suicide rate compared to other groups. The United States' suicide rate is 11.1 per 100,000 people. Foxconn employs somewhere around 800,000 people(!) which means by the end of the year, you'd expect a death count by suicide of around 90 people.
If the current rates holds, there'll be 50 more Foxconn employees alive at year's end than there will be Americans from a comparably sized city.
"It's not Apple's plant, it's Foxconn's."
Wrong. Apple knows what's happening. Everywhere Apple goes, there is abuse. Apple takes advantage of people who don't understand the technical implications of the Apple designs.
There are 3 choices: Be abused by Apple. Be abused by Microsoft. Use a less finished and poorly documented OS, Linux. Yes, I know, if you have lived and breathed Linux since you were a teenager, you don't need documentation. But businesses need to have a low cost of ownership, and good documentation is important to keep costs low.
If I were an evil genius, I would offer to pay the workers more AND pressure the other companies using Foxconn to increase wages. After driving up my competitor's costs, I would shift my manufacturing to a cheaper labor market in SE Asia. For purely ethical reasons, of course.
Who says that FoxConn is not just going to take the extra money as profit rather than give that money in the form of raises? The country is horribly corrupt at government and company levels.
Apple's just paying lip service.
I have to wonder whether the modern western world can only survive on slavery, with outsourcing being a convenient way to hide it.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
By giving in, the people who committed suicide are getting exactly what they wanted, and will do this the next time they want a pay raise. Oh, wait...
Here we can strike.
Though sometimes the police are brought in, it's hardly ever that bloody.
who said they worked 12 hour shifts with no days off.
The excuses about labor supply and demand, and how the factory is an improvement over a Chinese farm, are bullshit. If it was really like that, they could cut pay in half, use 4 shifts instead of 2 (or whatever the current scheme is), and give the workers an option of working double. Or some other such improvement. As it is, its just an abuse of power. As screwed up as organized labor has been in the US, this is what happens when you don't have it at all.
And yes, Apple is culpable, and so are all of us that own products by companies who use Foxconn. When a company is making profits, and its executives are earning large salaries and bonuses, the market isn't forcing them to do what they do. They can always scale back the size of their mansions a little bit.
If the cost goes from 2.3% to 3% that's a .7% increase. Proportionally that's nearly 1/3 to keep things simple.
Given that manufacturing costs have more than just the labor component, how can it only manage a salary lift of 20% when proportionally they're giving away more (and that covers everything)?
Society is better off without suicidal people, they probably weren't trying that hard anymore anyway.
Personally, I am not so sure giving the workers a raise is the most efficient way for the company to prevent the suicides. I have never known anyone to commit suicide simply because they felt they weren't making enough money. The more likely culprit, I think, is high stress levels - which may be caused by having trouble making ends meet due to inadequate wages, but would surely also be related to the working environment and the workload. Rather than raising wages by 20%, I would think that, say, hiring 20% more people to lighten the load would be more effective. Probably, the suicides are caused by a combination of factors, which suggests that they are also best combated by a combination of improvements.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
It's been shown that you have an infinitesimally small but real chance of not actually existing. It's difficult to aim for 100% when the best reality itself can offer is 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
I blame Planck myself.
Deleted
Nuff said.
When you outsource to foreign lands that force workers to sleep on the assembly lines, and in the factories... for 65 cents an hour, you're supporting slavery. (This is the common work condition of chinese labor)
I'm sorry. Apple wanted to cheat the economic system by not hiring Americans, because we have lives and high expenses due to the cost of living in America. Why pay Americans who only want to work and have a home and healthcare, when you can hire Chinese slaves who are easily replaced no matter how many of them commit suicide.
Fuck every corporation that sold America out.
Everyone thinks Apple products are to die for and this just proves it! Don't stop now Apple!
The suicide rate among foxconn workers is not only lower than for the population of China in general, but also lower than every US state. Every suicide is a tragic event, but I'm not buying the contention that their jobs are driving them to do it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You guys think 5 dollars a day or 6 dollars a day is going to make these workers suddenly be able to afford health care and better living conditions?
Why do you think a 0.7% price increase can raise their wages 20%, because they are paid waaaaay waaaay way way way way way way way way way way less than they should be. Then they deserve!!!
Fuck you, you self righteous apply pricks, you make an average of 50 dollars and hour and think paying these people a extra dollar a day is suddenly like your the most generation pricks in the universe.
The best way to improve these people's condition is to not buy these companies shit unless they pay decent wages at the factory level, rather than skim billion in profit personally each year. FUCK YOUR LOCAL CEO they are stealing from us, but mostly stealing from the people that can afford it the least.
I think your summary is simplistic. Apple's move here is nice but it does nothing to give their users freedoms they deserve (like controlling their own computers so they're not victims of Apple's "kill switch" where Apple can remotely deny any user some program on Apple's whim). This move does nothing to provide developers with reasonable terms for distributing programs on their app store (EFF has highlighted the awful terms). And Apple can decide to discontinue this at any moment, returning the workers to their former state of more unfair pay.
Ultimately decent pay for work should not be subject to corporate largesse. A living wage should be guaranteed by all governments so businesses can't take advantage of workers and maintain an environment that apparently leads to suicides. It's the system in which Apple has the power to do this that deserves challenge; that system must be changed so people can make gadgets and enjoy a living wage at the same time. A profit-before-everything race to the bottom won't do that.
Digital Citizen
Remember this story the next time you try to defend our all-mighty corporations' choice of offshoring every single job possible with the simple-minded argument of American workers just can't compete; they need to toughen up, take a lower standard of living, work harder, become better educated, etc, etc...
In a globalized world, there will always exist a shit-hole even worse than the last. Uless your idea of being more competitive really means accepting conditions so poor that death seems a valid alternative to a rather significant portion of the work-force, you might want to start thinking of a better argument.
that guy who lost iphone was killed
The chinese will forever be brainwashed into thinking foreigners are evil and that the slave way of life in factories like KYE and Foxconn is the norm.. and if you dont like it, too bad, go commit suicide, they will replace you with yet another mindless slave.
From everything I've read recently about the state of Internet usage in China, and an Asian friend of mine who just got back from spending 2 weeks over there .... I'm not so sure Google pulling out of China was as meaningful as people like to claim?
The vast majority of Chinese citizens seem to use their OWN web sites for various things. They have a big multi-user chat network (called YY, I believe), and they have their own version of Facebook over there too. They prefer native sites for the same reasons we Americans generally only use Western-based sites; we'd rather use sites written in our own native language!
Sure, there's an "underground" of political dissidents and rabble-rousers who want to spread the word about govt. corruption and so forth, and such activities are strictly prohibited by the Chinese government. But those people are already using encryption technologies as well as launching things from U.S. based sites, so as to make it harder to locate them. They, for example, might host articles on a U.S. based Google Apps account, or set up a U.S. based Twitter feed where news updates are sent out in Mandarin.
Ultimately, by pulling out of China, Google won a lot of positive P.R. from the West, while reducing some exposure to Asian hackers - so it wasn't "all pain, no gain" for them. And they'll continue to provide useful search and other tools to the Chinese who need them anyway. They'll simply have to go to a bit more trouble to get there.
As for Apple resembling a totalitarian state? Only if you believe a private business shouldn't ever be able to exert controls and limitations on the goods they sell!
Far from there being some "giant bureaucracy of app store censors", it appears to me their problem may largely be a LACK of people to review new uploads! One of the biggest complaints seems to be with the delays in approval of apps. As for not being able to say bad things about Apple? Not sure exactly what you're referring to here -- but I'm pretty sure MOST companies wouldn't allow software to be published by their own company that put their name and products in a bad light. (Ever see any Sony PS3 game releases or Nintendo Wii games that disparage their respective brands?)
The whole "porn" thing is overblown and shows a lack of understanding of the big picture by a lot of people, I think. Yes, Steve Jobs has personally said he doesn't really want a bunch of porn available on Apple products like the iPad and iPhone. So what? That's just as often a selling point as it is a negative, depending on who's buying. But most importantly, most of the porn sellers on the Internet have proven to be unscrupulous, cheating and lying bastards who just want to make an easy buck. Look how many PAID porn sites out there make attempts to infect your PC with spyware/ad-ware! They're not even satisfied taking your money... they still want to hijack your computer for more profit! Do you really want to associate your devices with/do business with those people? I don't blame Apple for taking a pass on it.
Playboy is a valid exception to the rule because #1, they're really only "soft porn". Playboy has quite a few limitations in place on what they will/won't show in their magazines and they have decades of evidence they've been consistent on that. #2, they're a legitimate publishing business that HAS proven itself more trustworthy to do business with than many others out there. They're not the "only, designated porn distributors" for the iPad/iPhone -- but they're certainly one of only a FEW long-standing print publishers of porn that has clear "standards". (Frankly, I don't know that others like Penthouse have even approached Apple about doing an app? But I wouldn't be surprised if they'd get a "green light" too, because again, they've got a pretty established business that DOESN'T just think customers are there to take advantage of with spyware and questionable billing practices, etc. etc.)
Not the loss of life, obviously. But there is an economic statement under all of this that is good news, somewhat.
If China has to try that hard to be competitive, and is now beginning to have their workers demand either more money or death - this might be the beginning of the end for outsourcing. If things are truly that bad in China to where people are willing to kill themselves in protest then they must surely be at the limits of their capacity. All they can do from here is make concessions to their workers and become less globally competitive.
It is a shame people had to die to make the point though. But it is a point worth making.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You guys think 5 dollars a day or 6 dollars a day is going to make these workers suddenly be able to afford health care and better living conditions?
Why would that matter.
You may not remember, but China is a full-on communist state, with health care for all for free.
As for housing, they already are required to live at Foxconn to work there. So there's nothing better (or worse) to buy.
Fuck you, you self righteous apply pricks, you make an average of 50 dollars and hour and think paying these people a extra dollar a day is suddenly like your the most generation pricks in the universe.
Generation?
They aren't necessarily saying they are generous, just trying to improve conditions for the workers in what ways they can. Remember that Foxconn makes things for tons of other people, it's not like Apple can really dictate hours or much beyond pay.
I think you are also forgetting what life is like in the culture around them, you simply cannot compare $5/hour here and there directly as you are. Well, you can, but it's simply ignorant to do so.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The parent post is a concise response to the anti-Apple drivel that regularly gets spouted on Slashdot.
It is true that there is a perception that Apple products are far more expensive - but only because Apple doesn't make anything that competes feature-wise in the low end of the market. When comparing like to like, their prices are only marginally higher than offerings from Dell/HP/Lenovo/etc.
This is a bad precedent to set for what is essentially extortion.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
1. Get employed by Foxconn.
2. Commit suicide.
3. Profit!
many countries over there need to bone up on teaching their citizens the sanctity of life.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
to tell us that if we just repeal all of those pesky workers' rights laws that corporations will, out of the goodness of their hearts, afford their workers such unaffordable luxuries as unpaid days off, an eight-hour day, overtime pay, a (gasp!) minimum wage, etc.
What most people don't realize is what life is like for factory workers in China. I have worked in China, and I can tell you that 12 hours shifts is not uncommon. You could make 15 hour shifts and people there would still line up to get a job, because the alternative is starvation. It's easy to criticize from a distance, but there is more to this than just a single company. The whole society and economy leads to this situation. Furthermore, what we aren't hearing here in the west is that after the first suicide, Foxconn employed a large number of psychiatric workers to come and talk to employees. The simple fact is, most of these suicides will be because most people in China are worth more dead than they are alive.
The first employee committed suicide after he was demoted for losing an iphone. Note, not fired, just demoted. After he took the dive, Foxconn payed a large sum, including IIRC a monthly fee, to the family of the worker. This money was considerably more than the worker would make. Shortly after, more suicides happened, and Foxconn payed more money to those families. This is how it is; the employees make more money for their families by dying than by staying and working, and this situation is not unique to this company. One of the women who committed suicide did so because of a personal relationship (I'm not sure of the exact nature, I didn't catch that part on the news here), and Foxconn still payed money to the family. AFAIK, Foxconn has recently made a new policy, wherein if an employee commits suicide without asking one of the companies employees for help, no compensation will be payed to the family.
It is a terrible situation, but blame cannot be heaped solely at the feet of this one company. This is just reality for factory workers in China. It is similar to child labor. All will agree that it is a terrible thing, but how much blame really lies at the companies who employ children? Sure, it's easy to blame them, but if they didn't employ those children, another company would. Why? Because without employment, many children are unable to feed themselves, and far too often their whole families as well. In this respect, China is no different from, say, India. Many parts of China, mostly the large cities, are becoming quite modern, but most of the country is still in the stone ages.
Lets see what they have to say. Posting anon for now... Disclaimer: Not visiting to discuss any of the recent events.... and I probably will not comment externally on what they do say.. Just sharing..
from your viewpoint this seems like an easy and wonderful conclusion. From here, well, think about what the article summary said: Some of the suicides were possibly "copycat suicides" because of the large compensation packages for bereaved family. Now, think about the Honda workers down in Guang Zhou who are on a walkout (no strikes allowed here) for a raise. Now, they have seen that for the relatively cost of a few suicides they can get the raise they are desperate for. Yes, I am saying that it is highly likely that this will inspire a rash of suicides among the grossly underpaid Chinese workforce. Think, minimum wage is 750 RMB (110 US) here outside of Shanghai. Oh, silly me, that is per month. It is not even close to living wage, much less something you could take into a marriage negotiation. Double that is a good factory job, still not enough to buy an apartment (and thereby become a legal resident of the city where you are working) or a car or anything that is considered success here. But another 20%? maybe things become more possible then, at least to consider getting married to someone who makes what you do. See the result, if i commit suicide i can help all my friends, if i don't we all suffer and fail. what would you do?
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
From what I have seen, conditions for operators aren't all that bad. Yes, compared to a USA worker, they are sheit, but "It could be worse". These guys make a minimum wage, have free boarding, have cheap food, have guaranteed overtime (at 1.5x rate). From what I have seen, they like the long hours because they make overtime pay. The increase in pay that Apple is providing will NOT slow the suicide rate at Foxconn, it will result in better quality production, and good PR for Apple, increase the prestige of the Foxconn operators who have the skill and discipline to work on Apple products, and likely increase suicide rates for the operators that are NOT working on Apple products (assuming that compensation has some effect above the noise floor).
Gotta start talking colleagues into jumping off the building. Hopefully I would get a raise then.
I'm afraid this is exactly what makes it the final straw.
Imagine you're working at a terrible sweatshop all day, and dream "When I get a job at Foxconn, it will be over. A bed instead of the shack, a warm lunch, a little extra to pay my debts and save some for some pleasures".
Then they get a job at Foxconn, and see their life, while better than before, is not much different or better overall, and the work is just as boring, takes just as long, and even with higher salary the debts keep growing... and worst of all, there is no prospect for anything better - this is THE Foxconn, the false dream of many - and being one of the "pubic hairs" (as the low-end employees of Foxconn call their peer) means no chance for promotion, significant rise, or any real change for that matter.
As long as they were worse off, they had an aim, get employed by Foxconn and everything will change. Now as they are there, there's not even that hope left.
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(no strikes allowed here)
The very essence of the idea of a strike is that it's something heavily inconvenient for Powers-That-Be. It is absolutely obvious that strikes are not allowed - they are not allowed in any part of the world that has a need for strikes to improve work conditions.
A strike is almost by definition illegal and not allowed. Sure there are countries that regulate "legal strikes", but then the strike is legalized through organizers notifying about the strike to occur and opening up for negotiations, so that the board can mitigate it by fulfilling the postulates of the crew. But otherwise, if the demands are not met, the board has no power to prevent a strike.
And once the strike starts, any means necessary are a fair game to stand your ground then: keeping security/army/police at bay by force, using force/destructive methods to block unauthorized access (like welding the gates shut), subverting the factory production (and stored materials) for defense/upkeep (eat manufactured food, sleep on makeshift beds made of production material), and so on. Essentially, without being unnecessarily destructive you turn the factory into a fortress. Of course write off the damages resulting from the strike (both in lost sales and in damage to the facility) as costs to be taken by the board in one of the postulates, and also include a clause that no consequences will be incurred against participants of the strike.
(this is about sit-down strikes in form that efficiently brought down socialism in Poland - where you disable the employer from replacing you with other employees, even by force.)
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"and then the worthless loser Tom Jode attacked the nice policeman's bat with his head, destroying the bat, which cost the company over $20 to replace. Rose of Sharon then, having killed her own child, committed depraved acts of sexual fetish with a random stranger. "
Why can't some of my cow-orkers off themselves? Kill two birds with one stone--rid the workplace of annoying, mopey, emo-types *and* score me a sweet raise.
Michael Coyne
http://turthalion.blogspot.com
So what if a job at Foxconn is slightly less crappy than one in another Chinese gulag^H^H^H^H^H sweatshop ?
Efforts from Apple to try to improve the quality of life of the workers they have outsourced to seems a nice idea to me.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]