The thing that was clear last night, particularly from the detail that, although the chips are machine-made, the iPhone itself is the product of about 300 -- I forget exactly -- sets of hands, young eyesight and endless repetition, that's where they have us for the moment. Bring it back here and you'd have to invest in some serious robotic production, because there's no way they could afford the masses of young workers in America, even if they paid minimum wage. They'd have a much quieter factory floor and a few dozen workers to stop the line or do a finishing detail or inspection-- not the thousands and thousands of workers. American workers, in fact, are far more productive when used that way. But why do it, our bosses say, when we don't have to invest in China; these kids are incredibly disciplined, and Chinese society keeps them quiet.
Yeah, exactly, they should actually bother to do some process improvement.
According to the report each iPad has roughly 18 hours of labor in it. Just what do you think your union buddies are willing to accept for 18 man hours of work? Would you buy an iPad for $1200?
I'm nonunion myself, but for manufacturing, I'd like to buy products that are union-made.
Like Swift said, they would have to actually improve the manufacturing process instead of using cheap labor to avoid process improvement.