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Foxconn Workers On Strike Over iPhone 5 Production
itwbennett writes "That army of robotic assembly line workers we mentioned yesterday apparently can't get started soon enough. As many as 3,000-4,000 workers are on strike at Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory, upset at stricter quality control requirements with the iPhone 5 and having to work through a national holiday this week. 'According to workers, multiple iPhone 5 production lines from various factory buildings were in a state of paralysis for the entire day,' China Labor Watch said. Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo are both blocking searches in Chinese for 'Foxconn strikes.'"
Won't someone think of the hipsters?
Couldnt they go on strike the day(s) of the holiday, just return the next day and start working?
Nah. That'd mean double time and a half strike pay. It'd brick the union.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
But in the US they have a high tax rate, and aren't allowed to just dump their waste in the local river... so that wont happen anyway.
It's not the holiday. It's the company's insistence that the products pass quality control. That's unheard of in Chinese manufacturing.
They'll be even more unhappy once they realize that robots can do their jobs even cheaper than they can.
Don't be silly, they'll be building the robots.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Chinese worker: $350/month.
Chinese robot (if the article is correct): $175/month.
Unionized US worker including benefits and taxes: $4000/month for doing a worse job slower.
20,000,000 iPhone users in the US paying 4x price for their phone so that 2000 can get jobs: priceless
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.