Mistreated Foxconn Brazil Workers Threaten Strike

An anonymous reader writes "More bad news comes from Apple's iDevice manufacturing partner Foxconn that is sure to ruffle the feathers of Apple fans. From the story: 'Factory workers at a Foxconn plant in Jundiaí, Brazil are complaining of overcrowded buses, poor food and a lack of water and have threatened to strike unless the issues are resolved by May 3. According to a report by Brazil's Tech Guru (Google Translation), over 2,500 Foxconn employees have complained about conditions at the factory. Workers reportedly met last Monday to raise the concerns and have given the company 10 days to address them.'"

Comments

Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

This plant has nothing to do with Apple. They make XBoxes.

Re:Ummm

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

I dislike Apple, quite a lot, but you have to be fair, Foxconn is an independent company, and certainly more closely associated with Intel than with Apple. It was Intel's huge contracts that made them as big as they are, and enabled them to get to other customers such as Apple.

Regardless, It's an industry wide issue. In order to compete in the real world, you have to manufacture in China, It's not just Apple doing it:

Here are more Foxconn customers:

        Acer Inc. (Taiwan)[36]
        Amazon.com (United States)[37]
        Apple Inc. (United States)[38]
        Cisco (United States)[39]
        Dell (United States)[40]
        Hewlett-Packard (United States)[41]
        Intel (United States)[42]
        Microsoft (United States)[43]
        Motorola Mobility (United States)[40]
        Nintendo (Japan)[44]
        Nokia (Finland)[38]
        Samsung Electronics (South Korea)[45]
        Sony (Japan)[46]
        Toshiba (Japan) [47]
        Vizio (United States)[48]

Truth is Foxconn manufactures reasonably good quality products (certainly way above average for China) and they do so incredibly cheap. That changed the industry, and it will continue to attract huge companies.

We are all responsible: The Chinese government is the main abuser of its citizens, and wants a bigger industry, so they'll allow Foxconn to do anything they want. Most corporations are big amoral entities, and so are most governments (I don't mean this as an insult, I'm not saying they are evil or good, I'm saying they are neutral, they'll do what it takes to bring in profit, regardless of the implications). The other involved party, and the only ethical one, are the customers, the general public, and they completely lack morals too. Most members of the general public, as well as most employees at any of this huge corporations, and most functionaries in any government are ethical human beings, capable of feeling empathy and understanding right from wrong. But as a whole, as entities, they behave according to a completely different set of rules, and ethics and empathy aren't in their instruction set. So it's up to the individual to change this situation.

If you are really pissed about it, stop working for them, stop voting for them, and stop buying from them. Complaining about it on the internet or pretending that any of this institutions, customers included, act as a whole will get you nowhere.

Microsoft Factory?

[Dupple]

Manaus and Indaiatuba are where phones are made, TFA states the workers threatening to strike are at the the Jundiaí factory. Isn't that where the xbox is made?

Re:Microsoft Factory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of products are made in Jundiai, Including iPhones as of December 2011.

Take the news as a grain of salt

[Edsj]

As a brazilian myself, I saw the news about it in the last few days in our local media.

Foxconn is in Brazil for serveral years. The main problem of water was reported as a temporary supply problem from the public water system, not Foxconn fault.

The second biggest problem was reported about the buses being overcrowded. This is most probably because Foxconn hired a lot of workes recently to increase its production and the guy responsible for transportation made a lousy job to handle the extra workers.

Also, the union president said the strike is very unlikely because Foxconn said it was already taking care of the situation. They aren't striking for salaries, bonus, or anything else related. The union just made a warning for Foxconn to act quickly.

Why are they annoyed?

[phantomfive]

More bad news comes from Apple's iDevice manufacturing partner Foxconn that is sure to ruffle the feathers of Apple fans

I'd bet they're more ruffled by the fact that Apple gets credit for everything that happens in Foxconn anywhere......

Re:Translation

[srh2o]

And still you offer none...

Re:How come the headlines never say...

[TheRaven64]

IIRC, more than half of Foxconn's production is iStuff, all the other brands are under 10% each. So yeah, Apple has more say in that than Dell, Samsung, Amazon, Toshiba, and ...

If I remember correctly, you just make stuff up. But since neither of us has a citation, let's move on...

Foxconn apparently makes 40% of the world's electronics and its customers include Amazon, Apple, Dell, HP, and numerous others. If Apple is really selling 20% of the world's electronics, then the company is doing a lot better than anyone thought...

Re:Translation

[jpapon]

Unions aren't even that corrupt in the US. Cases of corruption are just highly publicized by those who have an interest in seeing unions outlawed / declawed.

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, bullshit. We pay just the same price as we did for our consumer goods, the only difference is, with the full-scale assault on unions that started in the 80's, and rampant inflation, the purchasing power of the average American worker has stagnated for 30 years. Business aren't "forced" to do anything, they make a conscious decision to move operations overseas because it increases their bottom line. Those savings weren't passed along to consumers, they were passed along to CEO's, which is why today they make orders of magnitude more a year than they did back in those days. The "trickle down" bullshit is a myth, because the wealth never fucking trickles down. A billionaire getting another billion a year isn't going to do shit for the economy at all, but 100,000 people with an extra $10,000 a year in their pocket sure as fuck will.

It always cracks me up when people throw up union corruption but never fucking acknowledge the antisocial and outright damaging antics of the greed of these fucking asshole "job creators" on the other side of the coin. Terrorists, gangs, welfare queens...none of them are nearly as damaging to our economy as these goddamn parasites we call "corporations" that use every legal mechanism at their disposal (as well as some illegal ones) to avoid paying one single penny in taxes despite the fact that billions are pouring into their coffers every year. A single mother that loses her job is a parasite when she's reduced to applying for food stamps, but corporations sucking in billions in subsidies and tax breaks, while at the same time earning billions a year in profit, they're what? Something to celebrate? Fine, upstanding members of the community? Give me a fucking break.