Foxconn workers question why hours are being cut after FLA review

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  • Reply 101 of 206
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MJ1970 View Post


    However, regardless of whatever law was passed by whomever. The people directly affected are now wondering why they can't work more hours. This is also a "fundamental fact of the situation."



    So the answer they should be told is that that the law says they can only work 49 hours a week. Which they probably were told (but that has been left out of the articles)



    it sucks for them that they are worried about their families etc but it sucks more that they are being used as hit fodder by websites looking for more ad revenue etc. Then again, conditions at the factories have been used as prime hit fodder for ages so its no really a shock that its continuing.
  • Reply 102 of 206
    christophbchristophb Posts: 1,482member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    No, it's the truth. First we got Reagan's record setting deficits that damaged the economy for years. Then Bush Jr. Comes along and almost destroys the economy with his, and a war that we never should have had. No matter what we do, it will take 20 years to work ourselves out of that one.



    I'm surprised to see you dive into politics. I reckon if the mods do, it's open season for the trolls.
  • Reply 103 of 206
    rptrpt Posts: 175member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I think you're still evading my question.



    Maybe I was not stating it well. So I'll ask it differently.



    Assume that 3 hours of labor and 2 units of initial capital (e.g., time on a machine tool) are required to produce 1 widget. Assume that 'standard' labor costs $5/hour, overtime labor (which, you agree, should generally cost more) costs $6/hour, and one unit of capital costs $10.



    Total cost of producing 1 widget if standard labor is used?

    3*5 + 2*10 = $35.



    Because for the overtime you



    Total cost of producing 1 widget if 2 hours of standard labor and one hour overtime is used? 2* 5 + 1*6 + 2*10 = $36.



    Explain your argument?



    Because for the overtime the equation goes in the limiting case like this:



    2* 5 + 1*6 + 2*0 = $16



    in the extreme situation. Overtime does not require more rent for the building, does not increase your interest, hardly increases management costs, and the production equipment will cost less per hour because you increase the utilization, and physical wear is rarely the limiting factor, technological life is, so a high uptime results in a lower average cost.
  • Reply 104 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ktappe View Post


    Actually, we kind of do know what we're doing. There is such a thing as repetitive stress injury (RSI) that will occur if these people continue to work assembly lines 60+ hours/week. If you want your iPhone so cheap that you want workers in another country maimed for life, you are sub-human. There is nothing whatsoever stupid about cutting their time to 49 hours a week. Oh, and by the way, 49 hours/week is the law there. So your objection about westerners not knowing about eastern cultures falls badly flat. Grow up and learn something.



    Hurray ktappe! Apart from Zither and one or two others it seems that this board is overwhelmingly composed of idealistic xenophobes.



    That anyone should maintain the slightest concern for all people, without a will to mastery, without designs for slavery, is seemingly beyond the ruffians of the American social experiment. That teenage girls and boys in China should be having prom, meeting friends for froyos, taking minivans to beiber concerts, and all the unlovely diaspora of stupid shit that our own sons and daughters occupy themselves with, that that should even be a hope that we might express, is for some reason an incomprehensible scenario for the new Aryan elite. Elite, I may add, only in the sense that they are possessed of the greatest will to OVERPOWER, not elite in an intellectual sense, or moral sense, or by any measure of the older, and by the approximation of these cattle, superfluous, VALUES of our old champions of Truth and Justice, that is, the Voltaires, the Mandelas, the JFKs, et al. Surely, we've returned to the old imperialist dogmas of social decay and ideological stagnation that is ever the concomitant of thoroughly Christian (read: uneducated) societies. And when we've been outflanked economically, should we have any doubt that we will have a single solution to that problem, that old imperialist's solution, namely, an uneconomic outflanking?



    China is no better. In fact, the Chinese government is undoubtedly composed of the selfsame "social elite" (to remind you, elite only in the sense that they are possessed of a refined HATRED for their fellow man; a hatred that permits any number of advantages over a well-composed society that wills the dignity of all of its members, that is, a wholly un-capitalistic society, a wholly un-imperialistic society; a wholly novel society, one might suggest.)



    But all that is neither here nor there. The whiners here are upset that the masses have spoken, and rather than the hoarse call for slavery that our whiners had hoped for, they cried clearly for the dignity of their foreign counterpart. Think of it! The fat American slobs, the unemployed, unpowerful masses, would rather pay a little more for an iPad than see young men and women maimed for life! Young men and women that they will never meet; a rather uncharacteristic sentiment, wouldn't you say? It seems all too much like something our old champions would have told us to hope for; the wish, we might dare say, of the voltaires and JFKs.



    Maybe then the AppleInsider forums are an unusual cross-section of our seemingly unlovely middle class. I have to say, walking around the streets of Palo Alto today, I don't feel like these people have refined their hatred so thoroughly that a call for human dignity rings in their ears like a call for the castration of our economic model, like you AI "elitists" (that "elitist" that I described to you before) would have us believe.



    No, whatever you monsters are, you're at least not the rule. And we should be glad for that, if nothing else.
  • Reply 105 of 206
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by island hermit View Post


    Damn Apple! Depriving these people of the overtime they need to properly provide for their families. We need to organize and get a petition started that will force Apple to end these tyrannical practices.



    No, you should be saying Damm Chinese Government. Because they are the ones that set the rules that Foxconn is being forced to follow. If the rules change, Foxconn's practices will change. And if it is in their best interest for those rules to change they will led the cries for it to happen
  • Reply 106 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RPT View Post


    Because for the overtime the equation goes in the limiting case like this:



    2* 5 + 1*6 + 2*0 = $16



    in the extreme situation. Overtime does not require more rent for the building, does not increase your interest, hardly increases management costs, and the production equipment will cost less per hour because you increase the utilization, and physical wear is rarely the limiting factor, technological life is, so a high uptime results in a lower average cost.



    I give up, since, at this point, your numbers make no sense.



    If you'd like to believe that substitution of the same labor input from a checklist named "ABC" to a checklist that is then renamed "XYZ" has any real impact on anything else -- except the cost of said labor -- you're certainly welcome to!
  • Reply 107 of 206
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post


    The answer is for people to stop trying to dictate working conditions in other countries.



    No one is. Not in this matter. They dictated that the factories should follow their local laws. Nothing more or less. And the law is that you can't work more than 36 hours of OT a month. yes it sucks for folks that have nothing to do with the rest of their time, are saying for college or sending the money home. Now they will have to find another solution like a second job, or getting the laws changed.



    It's also possible that these people are not the norm or the majority but were picked, rather like Mike Daisey's story of the mangled hand, because they would get attention and page hits.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    How do small businesses handle this? Your employee leaves for one year, so you have to hire someone else and pay for their training to replace them.



    In the US, most of the time you don't have to allow the first employee back, especially if the position was filled. There are very limited cases where you have to keep a job for someone but often it doesn't have to be the same job or even the same pay etc. It's all in the nature of at will employment.
  • Reply 108 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cpsro View Post


    An additional problem created for the live-in workers: idle minds.



    Perhaps if that is the case the conservatives will finally be able to relate with Chinese factory workers, since, certainly, idle mindedness is a mainstay of the conservative ideology.
  • Reply 109 of 206
    bwikbwik Posts: 565member
    The thing I worry about is ignoramus liberal arts majors who oppose profit might actually sacrifice Apple to their god. In their minds, companies that make a profit should be stopped. Only unprofitable companies should be allowed.



    Also, they oppose poor people striving and working overtime. Instead, these "labor activists" believe poor people should not be employed at low wages. Instead, they should be given aid and live as prisoners who are forced to worship powerful aid and NGO executives, who are the god-heads of the liberal establishment. And I am a social liberal and humanitarian. I'm just not knee-jerk anti-corporate or anti-low wage worker.



    Ask yourself what is feeding 3 billion people in China/India. Clue: It isn't NGOs, Angelina Jolie, Bono or Brad Pitt, NPR or the New York Times. These people are working hard and earning what they get, like real adults. We don't need to assume everyone of a different color or culture is a child.
  • Reply 110 of 206
    rptrpt Posts: 175member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    I give up, since, at this point, your numbers make no sense.



    If you'd like to believe that substitution of the same labor input from a checklist named "ABC" to a checklist that is then renamed "XYZ" has any real impact on anything else -- except the cost of said labor -- you're certainly welcome to!



    I have some experience working with US Government auditors on projected cost. They are always interested in the the amount of projected overtime. The very simple reason is that they know overtime will bring the hourly costs down.

    With all due respect, I find it hard to believe you know much of running a production business.
  • Reply 111 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bwik View Post


    The thing I worry about is ignoramus liberal arts majors who oppose profit might actually sacrifice Apple to their god. In their minds, companies that make a profit should be stopped. Only unprofitable companies should be allowed.



    Also, they oppose poor people striving and working overtime. Instead, these "labor activists" believe poor people should not be employed at low wages. Instead, they should be given aid and live as prisoners who are forced to worship powerful aid and NGO executives, who are the god-heads of the liberal establishment. And I am a social liberal and humanitarian.



    Ask yourself what is feeding 3 billion people in China/India. Clue: It isn't NGOs, Angelina Jolie, Bono or Brad Pitt, NPR or the New York Times. These people are working hard and earning what they get, like real adults. We don't need to assume everyone of a different color or culture is a child.



    Yes, that's obviously what liberals are thinking.



    Halfwit.
  • Reply 112 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RPT View Post


    I have some experience working with US Government auditors .....



    That just about says it all.



    I'll take my knowledge of business over yours any day. Thanks.
  • Reply 113 of 206
    There is an extremely simple and obvious solution: Pay them more.



    It's embarrassing that the only reason they can make enough is by working tons of overtime. It would decrease Apple's profits slightly and the Foxconn CEO said it's entirely possible to do and he would love to give them pay increases.
  • Reply 114 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post


    No, you should be saying Damm Chinese Government. Because they are the ones that set the rules that Foxconn is being forced to follow. If the rules change, Foxconn's practices will change. And if it is in their best interest for those rules to change they will led the cries for it to happen



    I was just being stupid... making fun of the activists that helped bring about this change in overtime hours.
  • Reply 115 of 206
    mknoppmknopp Posts: 257member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Like it or not, the situation in these countries is very different than it is here. These people can be hundreds of miles from their families, and even the wages they make are far higher than what they would make at home. So sure, many don't mind working what we would consider to be backbreaking hours. They're used to that.



    If not in a factory, they would be working 12 hours a day on the farm for far less. But that's how developing countries move up into the developed world. It's only once they get there that people don't want to work hard anymore.



    So here, people can't wait to finish their 8 hours and run home to do nothing of import. But there, they'd rather be working.



    I keep saying that our standards are not theirs, and we have no right to try to make it so. So, safe working conditions, minimum wages and benefits, yes. But otherwise, we should leave them alone.



    We look at Europe, and see some countries where working conditions are, from our viewpoint in the US, ridiculous. We think that it's one of the causes of their problems. They often get 8 weeks vacation, 6 weeks sick leave. Retire after 20 years, etc. they think we're barbarians because WE work too hard. So, it's all relative.



    +++ for truth



    I found it highly ironic that China (the country that so many American see as nothing but one big forced labor camp) requires by law that their workers work less hours than any American law.



    I also find it ironic that Germany, one of those European countries that work less is currently kicking our (the US) butt in manufacturing and economic growth.



    Talk about seeing the splinter in someone else eye while ignoring the log in your own. But then again, they wouldn't be crazy liberals or conservative nazis if they weren't telling someone else how to live their life.
  • Reply 116 of 206
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,198member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mknopp View Post


    I also find it ironic that Germany, one of those European countries that work less is currently kicking our (the US) butt in manufacturing and economic growth.



    Germany is impressive, but Germany also doesn't have a ginormous military to nurse. However Germans do have to pay something like 10% tax off the top for their chosen religious organization--someone else here might be able to correct/clarify this point.
  • Reply 117 of 206
    bwikbwik Posts: 565member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by astrubhar View Post


    There is an extremely simple and obvious solution: Pay them more.



    It's embarrassing that the only reason they can make enough is by working tons of overtime. It would decrease Apple's profits slightly and the Foxconn CEO said it's entirely possible to do and he would love to give them pay increases.



    How myopic. There are billions of people suffering in the world (these factory workers are relatively affluent). They make 10 dollars a day or more. Way more than most people in the world do.



    We all "deserve" to make more money, but this Apple wage thing is just a random fixation of flinty journalists who are blessedly naive about how resources are allocated in this world, and why. And, why capitalism is better than communism, in purely humanitarian terms.
  • Reply 118 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Blastdoor View Post


    Just to nitpick a bit -- I don't think it has anything to do with culture. I think it's a lack of hard-headedness on the part of people with good intentions.



    I remember a story about a first lady back in the 19th century who was upset by the low quality housing that poor people had in a part of DC. She led a campaign to solve the problem by tearing down the houses, but without doing anything to provide better houses. Unbelievably, she didn't consider that maybe a crappy house is better than none at all.



    This Foxconn thing strikes me as a similar situation. This isn't slavery or prison labor. That is, these folks are choosing to work at Foxconn because it's a better option than anything else they could do. If you're going to lead a campaign to take their jobs away from them, then you better also be leading a campaign to get them a better job. But obviously that's a lot of work -- far easier to just whine.



    Im a bit confused about the comments on here, from what I read from another article yesterday it was said that:



    Quote:

    The FLA said Foxconn?s commitment will ?reduce working hours to legal limits while protecting pay, improve health and safety conditions, establish a genuine voice for workers, and will monitor on an ongoing basis to verify compliance.? This will lead to a maximum 49-hour workweek, including overtime for employees and a decrease in monthly overtime from 80 hours to 36 hours. While we reported some workers were unhappy with working fewer hours, Foxconn also committed to a compensation package for workers with reduced overtime





    So from Im taking out of all this FOXCONN commitment is that workers will work less but they WILL NOT notice any considerable difference in their regular salaries. Please correct me if Im wrong
  • Reply 119 of 206
    rptrpt Posts: 175member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    That just about says it all.



    I'll take my knowledge of business over yours any day. Thanks.



    I was basically talking about production costs, and I clearly understand that you don't have the faintest idea about how variable costs and fixed costs works in.

    The start of this discussion was the belief that Foxcon did not understand this, and would be helped by the superior understanding from people on this site to reduce their costs.

    I believe that Foxcon understand their own costs pretty well, I also believe that when people in the west try to help them, this may have other motives.

    I detest the political regime in China, but I believe companies like Foxcon represent an improvement to the conditions, and I hate to see reactionaries in the west critisise them for not being up to our standard when it is totally out of place.
  • Reply 120 of 206
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cpsro View Post


    ...doesn't have a ginormous military to nurse.



    Some might argue that, beyond some reasonable, needed level, "ginormity" is a matter of choice, not necessity!
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