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Chinese Tech Companies Building Factories In India
jfruh writes: Over the past two decades, China's relatively high skill, low cost workforce made the country a powerhouse of tech and electronics manufacturing. But in a sign that things might be changing, several large Chinese companies, including Foxconn and Huawei, are investing billions to start manufacturing in India. Xiaomi is expected to announce its first India-made phone today, as well. The article says that Foxconn's planned factory in Maharashtra "would create employment for at least 50,000 people, state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said after the signing of the agreement at which Foxconn CEO Terry Gou was present."
Foxconn is a Taiwanese multinational headquartered in New Taipei, Taiwan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
I don't think that they will find Indian workers as malleable, conformist and submissive as Chinese - the ostensible reason* why so much manufacturing was moved to China in the first place.
* Along with low wages - a related characteristc anyway.
maximum of US$1.15 per hour,
All your jobs are for us.
The labor is extremely powerful in factories. One simple personal anecdote, a worker was drilling holes in the wind tunnel model for me to mount the sensors. Did a 9.9 mm hole, and had mounted the 10mm reamer bit in the machine. He had one hole to finish when the siren sounded for tea time, he walked off! I was standing by him and asked him to just finish the last hole, (move the handle once down like in a slot machine, that was all that was pending) he was upset by that request, and refused to finish that job for three weeks. No other worker would touch the machine, other drilling jobs were piling up. I was a very fresh rookie at that time. I did not even had the perception to understand he was waiting for me to apologize for the affront. I would have readily done it if I had known it. No one clued me in on it too. They were all having fun watching me running from pillar to post to get the model to the four-foot tunnel. No one dared to order a worker to finish the job.
There are other stories of workers deliberately opening the autoclave some 24 hours into the cycle, corrupting the tempering process of all the pieces inside. They were aircraft parts, all of them had to be scrapped. Loss of almost a million rupees. A foreman was injured in a shop floor. Ambulance could not reach the location. They had a battery truck. But the workers would not let it be used to transport the guy. Why? foremen belong to the "management"! It is that bad there.
But almost all the unions are controlled by the communists, and China being nominally communist, they may be able to sway the leadership. Also communist party leaders in India have a reputation of being above bribery etc. But the reality was that USSR would give their children scholarships to study in Soviet universities and use their publication (Mir publications, New Century Bookhouse etc) arms to pay them for books that never sell. My cousins have audited the inventory of millions of unsold books being eaten by moths in warehouses.
So given the money China has and the nominal communist government it has, it could bribe the union leaders the way USSR did. It could have factories with much less labor trouble.
So it could work out for China the way it would never work out for USA or European companies.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In a few years China will be building companies in the USA due to it's cheap labor
China runs that place now anyway, pretty much. They're in it with the chinese!!
They are a Taiwanese company and this is hardly the first factory they have opened outside mainland China. They have factories in South America, Mexico, Eastern Europe, USA, India, etc. I would contend they have little allegiance to mainland China and are more than willing to pull up stakes if need be.
So the thieving Chinese get to try and motivate the shiftless, lazy Indians.
This ought to be fucking hilarious.
Foxconn's planned factory in Maharashtra "would create employment for at least 50,000 people,
I think he meant "enslave 50,000 people who voluntarily leave their dirt floor shack and move into an apartment in the city and start getting fat".
The enemy isn't buiness. It is sweet, tender nature that demands you put food in your mouth
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Tariff the hell out their stuff until it becomes economical to build their crap in the US
... of Africa?
A lot of things (raw materials not locally available, electricity, automobiles, telecommunications) cost a lot more in Africa.
Plus, in most African countries I think you'd have trouble finding enough workers qualified to work in a modern factory
The more comments I read in /. the more sad I become
1. I do run business in other continents, in cluding Africa
2. I do go to Africa (and other continents) regularly
3. First hand experience is vital for anyone who wants to ensure that his/her businesses to be successful
In one of my prior comments I mentioned that I have businesses in Kenya, and promptly someone replied with a statistic that Kenya being one of the most corrupted in the world ... blah blah, blah
How many of you have first hand experience of running businesses in Africa?
It is very easy to post comments based on the third/fourth hand statistics ( that Kenya is one of the most corrupted in the world) you guys got from some website somewhere; It is too easy to say something like " raw materials not locally available, electricity, automobiles, telecommunications) cost a lot more in Africa "
Without first hand experience, your comments only serve to showcase your utter ignorance and cluelessness
Africa may still be the backwater continent but a lot is happening and things are a-changing
But. Africa. Regional political unrest can undermine labor costs
China has plenty of weapons and military advisers to send to Africa to prop up the regime of their choice. Even troops, if necessary
You guys are projecting what you guys and your ancestors have been doing in Asia, South America and Africa, for the past 2 centuries, into China?
It's like pedophiles always wary their own children gotten raped by others
Oh, what irony!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I worked for a large pharmaceutical company... one of the largest in the US. We had a very large campus filled with union (laborer, electricians, janitorial, teamsters, etc). I ordered a chair. When it arrived, it required placing the top on the bottom. When I was caught putting the top on the bottom, I got written up for doing union work. I had a white board I needed put up, I put in a work order to have it done, I left there before it was done, and my white board was used everyday, propped up against something, or hanging on blue tack, because the union couldn't find the time to drill two holes for me. When I joked that I would come in on a weekend and do it myself, my boss found little humor in that. When the union threatened a strike, it closed our site for two days. Our site had, at that time, 30,000 employees. Fast forward to today... little to no union presences, and about 8,000 people working at a site designed for 30,000 plus. Partly due to the unions, partly due to economy of phama companies.
I also worked a summer job at sears, setting up the retail displays, it was a union job, and I paid union dues. As a laborer in the union, I could move things, set things up, and that was it. I set up a display that had tv monitors in it, but could not plug it in, that was electrical. I set up a display and needed to cover up some scratches with paint, and thought that was in the scope of my work description, it turned out to be a union painter job.
So that is the downside of unions we all read about, it happens, but then you also have the upside, which is the protection of the exploitation of workers, who work hard, do their job well, and are pushed out or away because of white collar decisions. The unions were and are needed in many instances to protect, and preserve the workers, but the unions have not kept pace with the changes in the work world, and are in constant conflict with the better intentions of the worker and management.
FWIW, I grew up in a Union house, father worked the line at GM, mother another union at a non UAW plant.... life was good, lower middle class, great benefits, and they retired with benefits for the rest of their lives. While I, have been out of work due to mergers and downsizing, many times, chased salary, worked extra jobs in retail, and I have advanced degrees, while my mom and dad barely finished high school and managed to make more money due to overtime (which I never see as a salary employee), and have more time off (again salary means I work more hours for less pay, and don't get overtime or even comp time for working at home or weekends). Try explaining that to a union worker... my parents still don't understand how I don't make more money than I do, when I am going in on weekends and holidays, why I don't have more vacation time, or sick time, and why I have had to change jobs so many times. There are no jobs for life, there are no benefits past retirement, and there is no guarantee that any thing will be constant.
But still, its better than working just to eat, and my quality of life is vastly better than many, so I am far from complaining about it. I only wish to show how unions are not the only reason things are bad, and that bad is relative.
Tax Corporate Revenues, Not Profits;
We're paying Income Tax on our Salaries, not our Savings
wh.gov/ijhBs
Casteism
I hear you like outsourcing...