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Foxconn Sees New Source of Cheap Labor: The United States
hackingbear writes "Foxconn is planning to build manufacturing plants in the U.S., probably in cites such as Detroit and Los Angeles. 'Since the manufacturing of Apple's products is rather complicated, the market watchers expect the rumored plants to focus on LCD TV production, which can be highly automated and easier.' Foxconn chairman Terry Guo, at a recent public event, noted that the company is planning a training program for US-based engineers, bringing them to Taiwan or China to learn the processes of product design and manufacturing."
Americans may have invented a lot of the manufacturing processes used for consumer electronics, but China and other Far Eastern countries have a big edge on us now. Let's put our egos aside and learn what we can from the Chinese.
Chinese companies are more willing to be self sufficient and train workers than American companies, who are constantly whining that the government should do it. And theyre from a communist country where the government is much more powerfull. Good job, assholes.
Gimme a break. Unions are the only thing that defends the middle class from the rich shareholders that demand ever increasing dividends.
You're right, unions ruined everything, including child labor and slavery. Oh the good old days, when you could lock your workers in a factory, and watch them burn to death. (Actually happened)
Not sure how it works in the US. But in Europe a typical valid answer is "if management did not treat the workers like shit, they would not be unionized."
Yes but detroit is a shit hole of desperation and low wages
You jabber on about how unions are bad, how they destroyed this country, but you couldn't be more mistaken. The reason we became a world superpower was because of unions, not in spite of them. When the industrial revolution first made land fall, people left the farms to move into urban factories. There was no health care, no OSHA, no retirement or social security, no educational system, and no child labor laws. Workers would get chewed up by machines and that was that. No lawsuits, no nothing -- your livelihood was destroyed. Quite possibly, you later died of starvation. All of the problems that are present in China today were there at the start of our industrial revolution as well: Corruption, environmental contamination, worker abuse, long hours, low pay, and massive wealth inequity.
Then the unions came, and with it; OSHA, social security, public education, child labor laws, overtime compensation. And you know what happened then? Civilization didn't collapse. In fact, it prospered: The roaring 50s. A single man could now drive a car and live in a house he paid for, in full, and support a wive and two kids, working only 40 hours a week. It was the first generation to grow up with public education, and that literacy reflected in every area of american living; Anyone could invent something new and sell it. America became the land of opportunity. Immigrants flocked to the stars and striped by the millions. The middle class grew, and upward mobility was something just about anyone could achieve. For the first time in modern history, hard work nearly guaranteed a comfortable living. And work hard we did. When Europe was devestated by the world wars, it was american industry and ingenuity that pulled their ass out of the fire, and I'm not talking about the unparalleled capacity to produce ships, tanks, guns, and planes either. We didn't just build our own country -- we rebuilt a dozen others as well in post-war reconstruction. And after all that, you know what we did then? We went to the fucking moon.
Even Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations pointed out that one of the essential duties of government is to provide for the safety and well-being of its citizens. In other words, the work force. America's investment in its labor force resulted in economic gains far in excess of anything even the largest mega-corporations of today can match. And then it all went wrong.
It started with the Boomers. Having been given everything by their parents, they didn't understand the price paid by their predecessors. They assumed that this temporary equilibrium, this golden age, was a permanent feature of America. They felt entitled to it, instead of thankful. And when they seized power in the 70s and 80s, they cut social security, education, defunded OSHA, deregulated... and for a time, it was good. But in the shadows consumer debt piled up. The cost of an education skyrocketed, and illiteracy creeped back in. Our scientific and technological progress peaked, then rapidly deflated as the careers of scientist, engineer, inventor, were removed from public prestige and replaced with ridicule and scorn.
Today, our media holds illiterate opinions as equal to the most established of scientific truths. Our children are unable to afford an education, and we're witnessing the lowest graduation rates from all levels of education that anyone alive can remember. Our economy is in ruins, the middle class is rapidly evaporating, and the few wealthy compete amongst each other to auction off our civil infrastructure and institutions. The bridges and roadways our grandparents built with pride that enabled our economy to prosper grow increasingly deficient, falling into rivers or eating tires and vehicles. Our railway and roadway networks are so badly mangled that the idea of bringing back blimps has been floated a few times as a way of getting goods around. Our air space is managed by state of the art technology... or it was, in 1965.
No, unions made us a super power. And we're going to lose that status because we took what they gave us for granted.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Oh yes, it's all the unions. Even though Germany has unions, pay's it auto works more, and their car industry is profitable, makes more cars, with large amounts of exports.
Unions done wrong fuck the system up. Builds adversarial us (the workers) vs them (the management) mentalities. Unions done right, can and does work very well. It is collaborative, where everyone works together to make the company better, struggle through the bad times etc. This collaboration works both ways, if the company is hitting hard times, the board, management should be taking paycuts themselves, stopping bonuses. They have failed to lead the company into a properous position. Before they have the cheek to ask the workers to cut their salaries, they should be severely cutting their own pay first. Put their hands up in the air, and claim "Yes, we fucked up", so how can we get through this? The CEO has taken a paycut of 80% sacrificing $25 million saving about 300 jobs, can you guys cut 15% until we get through this?
Both Germany and Japan after the second world war had written into their constitutions by Eisenhower, MacArthur and their aides various protections and rights for workers to bargain and act collectively. They both have become some of the biggest players in the automotive industry, and this is not by coinicendence, it is by design.
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
Actually, they could set up in *any* metro area in the US. Pay minimum wage. Make all the employees part time, so they don't have to pay benefits. 2 20hr/wk employees are cheaper than 1 40hr/wk or salary employee. They can maintain a barely OSHA compliant workplace, and items that are too expensive, they can just absorb the cost of fines. Their customers have financial and political leverage, so I'm sure lots could be ignored, especially if they're going to take a few thousand people off of the unemployment rolls, even though they'll make less working.
Pretty much, they'll act just like Walmart. A whole bunch of employees who fall below the poverty line.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Slaves make incredibly shitty workers. They only work hard enough to not get whipped. And you have to pay someone to stand behind them with a whip all day. The hard collar for draft animals basically ended slavery's economic viability. The rest was just social inertia.
That is one of those inconvenient truths that some people don't want to hear. Free people, with lives and expenses, have a far greater labor efficiency then slaves.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm afraid you're exactly right.
When you start globalizing and opening yourself up to competition with countries that have no labour or environmental laws to speak of, you by default undercut your own industries to the point where they are not competitive.
Free trade with developing countries is a horrendously bad idea for this reason. Tarriffs can be a mitigating factor - to a point, of course.
I'm a little segfault, short and stout.
Though union leaders screw over the members occasionally, it's no where near as bad as what corporate executives do. In fact, unlike corporations, unions have government watchdogs. Union leaders are fiduciaries for their members, so both the members and the government regularly investigate and sue malfeasance. Corporate executives are principally fiduciaries for the corporation, and it's difficult for either the government or shareholders to ensure accountability.
The notion that unions are corrupt, their members slothful knuckle-draggers, is political spin by the GOP and the business community which has unfortunately become common wisdom. Of course there was egregious corruption (and still is, but nothing like 50 years ago). But it wasn't just the unions, sadly. Union corruption is just more memorable. We can identify with stealing cigarettes from a truck, or scotch off a boat. Most people find it hard to wrap their heads around sophisticated corporate embezzlement schemes.
Yes but detroit is a shit hole of desperation and low wages
Foxconn will fit in perfectly there.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Also no one today was alive when the union movement got started. No one has in fact experience the actual violence and murder perpetrated against early unions who were lobbying for safer working conditions (such as not being forced to work in carbon monoxide polluted environments where people were routinely dying).
They're not going to pay minimum wage. Didn't you read TFS? They're just going to use machines, and employ a couple of engineers to watch over the production line, just like most other American manufacturers.
The real cheap labor is not labor at all.
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Once you mandate union membership you lose the edge for the unions to actually be beneficial for their members. In effect, you'll be trading one bad overlord for another. Corrupt union directors will want to protect and grow their empire, not put their energy in representing their members. A union should be beneficial enough for people to want to join voluntarily. Several western European countries still have a healthy union culture, without being mandatory membership. These unions generally do a pretty good job negotiating collective things and have "free" legal representation in case an individual member has trouble with their employer. Union strikes are relatively rare, but tend to be influential enough to be feared by employers. In short, it's perfectly possible to have the unions make themselves useful without mandating membership.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
And guess what else? Ever since the union-busting really took off, working conditions and the share of the revenue going to the workforce have declined.
Smart people would notice the correlation.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?