Apple Puts Foxconn Factory in India on Probation Following Protests

[CarlJ]

Apple products need to be made in the USA.

Exploiting foreign workers should not be in their playbook even if they use intermediary companies like gloves.

Apple should move towards making more of the products in the USA.

I don't think most people appreciate the scale of the manufacturing they're doing in China. The main factories there have several hundred thousand workers making iPhones and such. There isn't any place in the US where you can find several hundred thousand people in one city or a few nearby cities, right now, who are both willing and properly skilled to do this work. And the factories in China making iPhones are surrounded by other factories making all sorts of sub assemblies, all the way down to washers and gaskets and screws. The US has thrown out this kind of infrastructure and we're doing a damn poor job with our schools. It's not just a matter of "let's move production here", it's not just a matter of building the factories necessary, and setting up all the supply lines, it's a matter of changing some pieces of our society around so that we can come up with a sufficient number of people who are available and prepared to do the work, all concentrated in one area.

 

[Shirasaki]

“Available drinking water” ?!? WTF

AFAIK India doesn’t really have widely available drinking water, much less clean drinking water. So this doesnt really surprised me.

 

[Shreducator]

Apple products need to be made in the USA.

Exploiting foreign workers should not be in their playbook even if they use intermediary companies like gloves.

I agree with the foreign worker part but manufacturing will never return to the USA.

 

[NLLV]

For all of Apple's record setting profits, you'd think they could at least try to go the extra mile instead of cutting corners.

They've become the worst of both the pirates and the navy and make Microsoft from the 1980s and 1990s look almost benevolent by comparison.

So you are blaming APPLE for something that FOXCONN did.

Apple does not "make" the final product. They hire a company to do so. Foxconn had bad conditions, which were exposed by the protests.

Now it can be argued that Apple needs to pay closer attention to the people they hire like Foxconn, but it is not that Apple created a bad environment for the workers.

 

[NLLV]

I agree with the foreign worker part but manufacturing will never return to the USA.

Really? You might check that statement with some of these companies:

List of Technology Companies That Manufacture Their Products in the US

Learn more about technology manufacturing in the USA and technology companies that continue to manufacture some or all of their products in the USA.

www.trentonsystems.com

Or the component manufacturers in this article:

Silicon, USA: Technology That's Actually Made in America

Ever tried to buy a computer assembled in the United States and made entirely of US parts? You can't. But we found 43 companies that make high-quality tech products in the United States.

www.pcmag.com

There are impediments to doing business in the USA. One such is the government taxation. The last guy that people hated for various reasons had tried to solve some of them, and a bunch of companies came back and started building things here again.

The current guy wants to increase taxes, so if I were a company and wanted to maximize profits I would also look abroad where I could makes things cheap and profit the most.

The thing people do not understand is that it is every link in the chain of the manufacturing process that adds a cost to the final product.

If EVERYTHING is made in China, even starting as small as rare earth minerals needed in electronics, then of course they will focus the entire process in China.

If we made it more open to business in the USA, then we would have more things made here, and more people paid well, and less horrid conditions for workers.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Apple should move towards making more of the products in the USA.

I don't think most people appreciate the scale of the manufacturing they're doing in China. The main factories there have several hundred thousand workers making iPhones and such. There isn't any place in the US where you can find several hundred thousand people in one city or a few nearby cities, right now, who are both willing and properly skilled to do this work. And the factories in China making iPhones are surrounded by other factories making all sorts of sub assemblies, all the way down to washers and gaskets and screws. The US has thrown out this kind of infrastructure and we're doing a damn poor job with our schools. It's not just a matter of "let's move production here", it's not just a matter of building the factories necessary, and setting up all the supply lines, it's a matter of changing some pieces of our society around so that we can come up with a sufficient number of people who are available and prepared to do the work, all concentrated in one area.

Not to mention the surrounding plants and factories provide options for workers during off-seasons for the iPhone. If there was a lone Foxconn factory somewhere in the US, it would be hard to keep around enough workers willing to come on just during the fall.

 

[4743913]

Apple should move towards making more of the products in the USA.

I don't think most people appreciate the scale of the manufacturing they're doing in China. The main factories there have several hundred thousand workers making iPhones and such. There isn't any place in the US where you can find several hundred thousand people in one city or a few nearby cities, right now, who are both willing and properly skilled to do this work. And the factories in China making iPhones are surrounded by other factories making all sorts of sub assemblies, all the way down to washers and gaskets and screws. The US has thrown out this kind of infrastructure and we're doing a damn poor job with our schools. It's not just a matter of "let's move production here", it's not just a matter of building the factories necessary, and setting up all the supply lines, it's a matter of changing some pieces of our society around so that we can come up with a sufficient number of people who are available and prepared to do the work, all concentrated in one area.

absolutely correct about the public school system.. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level. Thats not a winning strategy for building anything here..

 

[macdos]

Pretty sure assembly could be done in US as we had a foxxconn factory for the 5C here in Brazil and it worked without any issues.

You really forgot to mention how the capitalist American loves que comunist China for obvious reasons. Full state control over speech, major infrastructure channels and technology people can use.

Funny tho' they won't allow a little island to the east of its florida state to live like that.

1. China is "communist" only in name. It is a state capitalistic hybrid regime governed with a traditional Confucian style of leadership. Communism is defined as common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, and this simply doesn't resonate with a country that has a higher Gini coefficient than the US and also more billionaires than the US. You are only fooling yourself by equating China with the USSR.

2. The little island is in fact free to live as it pleases, including keeping its democracy and its armed forces, but it can't say it doesn't belong to China.

 

[zoomp]

2. The little island is in fact free to live as it pleases, including keeping its democracy and its armed forces, but it can't say it doesn't belong to China.

I didn't know Taiwan was near florida... but maybe my hubris is foolishing me, or is it yours?

 

[svish]

Hope the situation becomes normal.

 

[alex2792]

Tim Cook in private: “you must do a better job controlling your slaves”

Tim Cook in public: “we live human rights, would you like a pride watch band?”

 

[ericwn]

Tim Cook in private: “you must do a better job controlling your slaves”

Tim Cook in public: “we live human rights, would you like a pride watch band?”

Someone must teach Tim then because there’s certainly no slavery involved.

 

[luckman212]

You want iPhone to be $2000?

Yes! Maybe that would stop this obsessive, maniacal "must buy a new phone every year" hamster wheel they've got us hooked on. I'm still using a 4 year old iPhone XS and it works 100% fine and does everything I need. Price the phone like a car and stop forcing slave labor to subsidize your addiction to novelty.

 

[DaveTheRave]

Apple products need to be made in the USA.

Exploiting foreign workers should not be in their playbook even if they use intermediary companies like gloves.

Okay, great. How much more are you willing to pay for an iPhone? 25%? 50%?

 

[ericwn]

Yes! Maybe that would stop this obsessive, maniacal "must buy a new phone every year" hamster wheel they've got us hooked on. I'm still using a 4 year old iPhone XS and it works 100% fine and does everything I need. Price the phone like a car and stop forcing slave labor to subsidize your addiction to novelty.

How would you then stop the competition undercutting you for price so dramatically and throwing yearly updates out into the market?

 

[dysamoria]

Yes. I am OK with foreigners getting jobs.

Unlike you, who apparently thinks foreign workers should be unemployed.

We get it, you people hate foreign workers. Your racism is something we neoliberal globalists will continue to fight.

The world doesn't owe you anything. The sooner you understand that, the better. You need to be able to compete with foreign workers. If you can't, then YOU get to be unemployed.

Dude! What the hell are you going on about???? Stop trolling! Nothing in either post your screaming at has anything to do with your bizarre ranting!

 

[dysamoria]

Yes! Maybe that would stop this obsessive, maniacal "must buy a new phone every year" hamster wheel they've got us hooked on. I'm still using a 4 year old iPhone XS and it works 100% fine and does everything I need. Price the phone like a car and stop forcing slave labor to subsidize your addiction to novelty.

That would hurt people who have limited budgets. It would validate the “iPhones are for wealthy spoiled brats” rhetoric. It also wouldn’t stop actual wealthy spoiled brats from continuing to buy unnecessary “upgrades”.

 

[dysamoria]

your white knighting is not necessary. I said what I meant.

It’s bizarre to call someone out for giving someone else the benefit of the doubt. Especially bizarre to use a cultish term to do so.

 

[dysamoria]

And who exactly is going to assemble them in the USA? We have to call in the national guard to drive our school buses and help in hospitals because of a worker shortage (and these are good paying jobs). You can’t pay the assemblers minimum wage e.g. $15/hour since it’s much easier at that salary to be a gas station clerk or to drive for Uber eats at an average of $18/hour. Let’s take an average production line worker at a non union Honda plant in Ohio for example, they would make about $21/hour an assuming a 40hour week and 2 weeks of vacation per year that’s about $42k annual salary. Now Apple would have to pay more since it’s in the crosshairs and tiny component assembly is more tiresome so let’s say about $45-50k annual. In the US, benefits add about 30% on top of salary so the FTE cost per assembler is about $58-70k annually. And that’s if you can find 20,000 people who want to sit there for 8 hours a day putting things together. So even if everyone in the world were willing to pay $1200 for a base iPhone 13 you’d be hard pressed staffing your plant.

Maybe, and I’m just spitballing here, the corporate executive class could take fewer millions in their yearly pay so that workers could be paid living wages... or even fair wages; imagine that!

The pay disparity between worker and executives is an actual thing, and has been getting worse (on top of bad) for decades. The problem is greed at the top, not worker demands for unreasonable pay and benefits.

 

[I7guy]

[…]

The pay disparity between worker and executives is an actual thing, and has been getting worse (on top of bad) for decades. The problem is greed at the top, not worker demands for unreasonable pay and benefits.

Would you give up part of your salary and bonus so a worker who is earning less than you can get more money? If so, how much would you be willing to give up? Would you say workers should be paid to scale based on the job or experience and what other workers in similar capacities earn?

 

[4743913]

Okay, great. How much more are you willing to pay for an iPhone? 25%? 50%?

I will always weigh cost vs value. I have a 12. did the 13 add any value for me? nope. so I wouldn't even pay 25% less to upgrade.

 

[4743913]

It’s bizarre to call someone out for giving someone else the benefit of the doubt. Especially bizarre to use a cultish term to do so.

yes but your rantings about fair wages so you can upgrade your iphone is totally not bizarre am I right?

 

[wanha]

What came first, chicken or the egg.

Usually you have a product before you have customers, no? Kickstarter projects are obvious different.

 

[pray2crom]

I find it so odd how apple tries so hard to present themselves as climate protectors and champions for social justice but yet decides to manufacture and rely on supply chains from nations where none of that even maters.....

 

[Luis Ortega]

You want iPhone to be $2000?

You’re happy that slave labor keeps the cost down?