NYU student talks assembling Apple's iPhone 6s & 7 for Pegatron
In an interview published on Tuesday, a New York University graduate student described working at a Pegatron factory near Shanghai last year as a summer project, where he assembled the iPhone 6s and later the iPhone 7.
While the Q&A session with Dejian Zeng, conducted by Business Insider, revealed little in the way of new information, it did offer a few interesting tidbits about Apple's process of prepping a new iPhone model for manufacturing.
As previously outlined in numerous China Labor Watch reports, Zeng's job involved repetitive, boring work. Initially, Zeng was tasked with fastening an iPhone 6s speaker to its housing with a single screw, repeatedly, over the course of 12-hour shifts. When he was switched to iPhone 7 work in August, his job switched to fastening a camera cowling using two screws.
Zeng noted that when the iPhone 7 went into trial production he would sometimes have nothing to do for hours, only churning out a handful of phones in an entire day. Security, meanwhile, ramped to severe levels, with two security checks plus increased metal detector sensitivity, even forcing women with wire bras to change their clothes.
During iPhone 7 production, Apple staff -- referred to as "the client" by Pegatron staff -- were on the floor to monitor the process, and factory management are said to have turned the assembly line into a virtual "clean room."
Zeng noted that he only earned $450 per month, with unpaid breaks and effectively mandatory overtime. Most people on the floor couldn't afford iPhones, and so used local Chinese smartphones instead -- important, since they were required to use a special Apple-promoted app with training documents and overtime information.
Pegatron itself is said to have offered two days of training, mostly focused on safety, and indeed kept an eye out for safety problems after the fact as well as underage workers.
An Apple spokesperson told BI that the company has staff at the Pegatron factory every day, and performs audits to keep weekly overtime under 60 hours, the average allegedly being 43. Wages are claimed to have grown more than 50 percent in the last five years, passing Shanghai's minimum wage.
Apple audits of Pegatron operations purportedly found 99 percent compliance with the 60-hour limit. Zeng complained, however, that workers do sometimes put in more than 60 hours, and that people barely get enough time for rest, much less some of the training programs they're offered that would allow them to pursue a less grueling career.
While the Q&A session with Dejian Zeng, conducted by Business Insider, revealed little in the way of new information, it did offer a few interesting tidbits about Apple's process of prepping a new iPhone model for manufacturing.
As previously outlined in numerous China Labor Watch reports, Zeng's job involved repetitive, boring work. Initially, Zeng was tasked with fastening an iPhone 6s speaker to its housing with a single screw, repeatedly, over the course of 12-hour shifts. When he was switched to iPhone 7 work in August, his job switched to fastening a camera cowling using two screws.
Zeng noted that when the iPhone 7 went into trial production he would sometimes have nothing to do for hours, only churning out a handful of phones in an entire day. Security, meanwhile, ramped to severe levels, with two security checks plus increased metal detector sensitivity, even forcing women with wire bras to change their clothes.
During iPhone 7 production, Apple staff -- referred to as "the client" by Pegatron staff -- were on the floor to monitor the process, and factory management are said to have turned the assembly line into a virtual "clean room."
Zeng noted that he only earned $450 per month, with unpaid breaks and effectively mandatory overtime. Most people on the floor couldn't afford iPhones, and so used local Chinese smartphones instead -- important, since they were required to use a special Apple-promoted app with training documents and overtime information.
Pegatron itself is said to have offered two days of training, mostly focused on safety, and indeed kept an eye out for safety problems after the fact as well as underage workers.
An Apple spokesperson told BI that the company has staff at the Pegatron factory every day, and performs audits to keep weekly overtime under 60 hours, the average allegedly being 43. Wages are claimed to have grown more than 50 percent in the last five years, passing Shanghai's minimum wage.
Apple audits of Pegatron operations purportedly found 99 percent compliance with the 60-hour limit. Zeng complained, however, that workers do sometimes put in more than 60 hours, and that people barely get enough time for rest, much less some of the training programs they're offered that would allow them to pursue a less grueling career.
Comments
This is a china problem, not an Apple problem. I am not even sure Apple determines how much people can make at these factories, factories that make products for Samsung, Microsoft, google and the likes I might add.
I would sincerely like to know how much Oppo and Xiaomi, and Huawei pay their workers.
to quote Z400racer37 from macrumors .
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/nyu-student-goes-undercover-at-pegatron-factory-offers-inside-look-at-iphone-production.2041400/#post-24487755
'Apple audits of Pegatron operations purportedly found 99 percent compliance with the 60-hour limit. Zeng complained, however, that workers do sometimes put in more than 60 hours, and that people barely get enough time for rest, much less some of the training programs they're offered that would allow them to pursue a less grueling career.'
A less grueling career is what these Pegatron employees found in the factories. Since moving to the Philippines I've passed huge fields of rice cultivation. Does rice cultivation, often representing a subsistence lifestyle, represent a less repetitive, more rewarding, higher paying and less grueling occupation? Here's a view, at least here in the Philippines, of the lives representative of where these workers come from and help support with the higher incomes that come from factory work that they remit home. Note that this video presents an idyllic view of this life; most have nothing like the homestead depicted but are squatters who owe the land owner the majority of their output.
Sad fact of the world we live in.
This is because more than 3B people (half the adult World population) has less than $3,700 in wealth. 1% of the World adult population is 56M people and 10% of the World adult population is 560,000M people. There are only about 2500 billionaires in the World and only about 16M millionaires in the world. All the billionaires and millionaires and people with a least $1M in wealth, in the World, accounts for about 75% of the people in the wealthiest 1%. The other 25% (in the top 1%) are people with at least $800,000 in wealth. By that standard, I'm willing to bet over 50% of the people commenting here are in the 1% of wealthiest people in the World and nearly all are in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the World.
It is no great feat for a dozen of the richest people in the World to have more wealth than the poorer 50% of the World adult population. Not when the 3B people that makes up the poorest 50% of the World adult population, have less than $3,600 per person, in wealth. A panhandler that makes $10 a day, is wealthier than 50% of the adults of the World's population.
And then we're taking about wealth not annual income. How much wealth one has is not just based on annual income. A life savings account is wealth. A college fund for your kids is wealth. A mortgage free home is wealth. So is a paid for auto or a Picasso or coin and stamp collection or an Apple 1 computer or an IRA or stock portfolio or a profitable business. Wealth is not necessarily something that can be replace every year, once it's gone.
Take away Gates $75B that he has amassed in wealth over the last 35 years and give it to the poorest 50% and it's only a one time deal. Gates will not earn another $75B for quite awhile. And it will only come to $22 per person in the bottom 50%. So how will the poorer 50% receive another $75B next year and the year after next? Redistribution of wealth, no matter how much of it is concentrated among the top 1% or 10% of the wealthiest people in the World, is not the answer you are looking for.
Margret Thatcher put it this way………. "The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."
Plus the "wealth" of a corporation do not count. All of the corporation wealth belongs to it's shareholders and is counted as part of the shareholders wealth. You can't count it twice.
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/top-1-of-adults-own-51-of-the-worlds-wealth-top-10-own-89-and-bottom-50-own-only-1/