Slashdot Mirror
Foxconn May Close Factories In China
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Foxconn, the manufacturer whose clients include Apple, Dell, and HP, is on the verge of pulling out of China after a spate of suicides. The CEO has accused workers of killing themselves for financial compensation, and the company has stopped suicide payments to suicide victims' families. Foxconn's CEO also told investors that it is considering moving its production operations to Taiwan, and automating many parts of its business, a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs."
These suicides are well within the statistical expectations for a worker population that large. But People don't care about facts, just emotions.
Although there were "guilds" in europe for ages, the modern trade union emerged in the US as the train union. At the time train workers were like foxxcon workers. There was no assurance a route would ever return you home. You lived in company towns along the way. And the main fixture there was the bar where you wasted your pay check. Accident rates where high and efficiency or scheduling was low. Since you lost your wages and never saw your family, what were you living for?
The train unions first emerged not to demand better wages but better living conditions. They sold themselves to the train owners as a plan to increase professionalism and public respect. It worked. accident rates did go down. Barrier's to entry and standards increased training, retention of experience, and professional conduct. Workers took pride in their work. Many bars were closed People returned home on time and with money in their pockets.
Today we often see unions as protecting lazy workers form being fired or demanding higher wages via collective bargaining. What we don't see is that these are small perturbations about a dynamic equilibrium between labor and management. That is we no longer have the deprevating working conditions of the 19th century to see what could be the case if management got the upper hand when labor markets were not tight. The excesses of unions we see to day are tracebable to fact that in some markets it's possible for manufacturer's to push along price increases as long as they can gaurenttee the competion pays the same costs. E.g. car manufatuter's would agree to a wage increase at GM as long as there was also one at ford. IN any given port, the same principle allows port owners to pass along long shoremen wage increases.
What we have here in foxconn is a throwback to the same early situation. Workers living in company dorms, shitty pay, long hours and dangerous working conditions. That is to say, no union.
The real problem with this is not the sad plight of those poor workers. But actually because it undermines the status of workers who work in countries with state or union mandated good working conditions. Those jobs get shipped out. There is a push to relax those costly standards to get the jobs back.
The solution to both these problems is not for the FOX conn to unionize. It would be good if they did but until that becomes universal in asia it won't fix the problem, it will just move it. INstead the solution is to put a tarrif on all imports from countries that makes the playing field level.
if your workers have below-OSHA woking conditions then imported goods get a tarrif that is equal to the cost to US companies for maintaining OSHA standards.
this then makes it cost neutral for foxcon to have better condtions because it can outcompete companies that don't do that.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
First, you'd need Chinese rates rather than Canadian ones, as there are non-trivial cultural differences in play.
Second, you'd need rates for the specific demographics that are employed at the factory, and not just ones for the population as a whole. In the US, the elderly have a higher rate than the population as a whole, but the elderly are less likely to be employed in a factory.
Last, as I understand it, they've had 9 suicides at the factory, not just 9 suicides by people employed by the factory. The article isn't clear on whether Foxconn paid benefits for any suicide by an employee or just ones that happen on Foxconn property, but if it's the latter it's certainly a motivator.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Taiwan = RoC: Republic of China
Mainland China = PRC: People's Republic of China...
And that doesn't even consider the eventual reunification that *both* sides desire. (although the desired terms are wildly different...)
You really open a can of worms with that one. You're right that a significant minority want unification if differences could be resolved, but this is not a common goal. For instance, my wife is Taiwanese, and she and her family do NOT want unification. The previously elected president Chen Shui-Bian was the first president in the current government not from the Kuomintang party but from the DPP, a party that is pro-independence. Even the current president from the KMT, Ma Ying-Jeou, likely does not want unification, but rather stronger economic ties. Most Taiwanese favor the status quo-- de facto political sovereignty without severing ties with China by formally announcing independence (source).
So, no, the factories are not moving within China.
Pay them a fixed price: their incentive is for you to buy / sell ASAP, good deal or bad.
Pay by the hour: they could milk you forever.
Pay a percentage: buy / sell ASAP, since holding out for a better deal could easily double their work and still only increase their haul by a few percent.
Even in the simple case - a company paying salesman a percentage of what they sell - can easily turn bad for the company through infighting salesmen, lying to customers, and customers with buyer's remorse who won't come back.