Foxconn Workers Express Concern Over Reduced Overtime

[Peyote]

Direct quote from the First article on this report:

"More importantly, while employees will work fewer hours, Foxconn has agreed to develop a compensation package that protects workers from losing income due to reduced overtime. In order to maintain capacity while reducing workers' hours, Foxconn committed to increase its workforce significantly as it builds additional housing and canteen capacity."

 

[fidelityrevo]

And? What is their cost of living? If it is well below $3 a hour then what is the issue. Why should they have to make the same $8 a hour minimum wage that US workers make if their cost of living isn't as high as in the US.

Consider, for example, that a Foxconn worker can rent a bed in the dorms for $17 a month. That's less than one day's pay. They can eat in the cafeteria for something like $4 a day total. Their uniforms cost them something like $5 a month. Everything else they make is money in their pockets. So in light of these details how is $3 a hour really that awful.

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Bingo.

The cost of living is not an issue when determining executive pay is it? Perhaps it should be, there is no good reason for the overcompensation of executives and management.

But as for the costs of housing. Try renting a real apartment in China. It isn't that cheap, nor available. The rooms are tiny. The workers considered to be animals by the CEO. This is a company town set up. The living conditions are not good. What about health care? There is no national healthcare in China. What is the quality of cafeteria food? Can people support a family on these wages over the course of many years? Why has FOXCOMM hired child labor. The answer is simple. GREED.

Why apologize and make excuses for exploiting these workers? Why be so invested defending a system that produces cheap electronics, when the human cost is so high? We should be in solidarity with these people. We should also wake up to why there is also a self protective side to the solidarity we need to have. If we support anti-union anti worker, unsafe and low-paid environments, we'll get more of that here.

 

[brdeveloper]

Some Microsoft factory workers said that. In a group of about 100.

but at no time has anyone ever jumped saying they were doing it because conditions at an Apple factory were that bad.

In fact, Foxconn saw a huge decrease in jumpers after they stopped giving out death benefits for suicides, which strongly points to the stress of supporting families back home as a major factor in the attempts.

Remember these people aren't slaves, if the conditions were that bad they could just quit.

You have forgot 1929. There was no difference between slaves and workers. Google-image "Dorothea Lange photography"

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Actually quite educated. I just believe in a free society, not a society where the government is going to tell me how long I can work and how much money I can make. If those workers want to work more and provide a better life for their family, why should the government tell them they cannot?

If companies could keep high profit margins while providing better life for their workers, pushing society to higher living standards, why not? Some confuse entrepreneurship with exploitation.

 

[fidelityrevo]

Put Up the Suicide nets

Some Microsoft factory workers said that. In a group of about 100.

but at no time has anyone ever jumped saying they were doing it because conditions at an Apple factory were that bad.

In fact, Foxconn saw a huge decrease in jumpers after they stopped giving out death benefits for suicides, which strongly points to the stress of supporting families back home as a major factor in the attempts.

Remember these people aren't slaves, if the conditions were that bad they could just quit.

Foxcomm's first reaction to the spate of suicides was to put up nets to stop the jumping. That isn't a solution, it is a bandaid. The idea that conditions aren't that bad and they could just quit flies in the face of the fact there isn't a safety net in china. There is no iron rice bowl. That is all gone in new capitalist-with-a-socialist-face China. People were jumping because of rotten conditions, low-pay, too much stress, complete control of their lives. When someone is working 60 hours pay for $150 a week, that is wrong, especially when the product they make is much more valuable that that. That is the profit off of one iPad. How many hundreds do they assemble a week?

Chinese workers don't have the right to strike. They can't control their own unions.

Writing responses to this kind of thinking makes me wonder if it's an apple/foxcomm employee trolling

 

[Peyote]

Foxcomm's first reaction to the spate of suicides was to put up nets to stop the jumping. That isn't a solution, it is a bandaid. The idea that conditions aren't that bad and they could just quit flies in the face of the fact there isn't a safety net in china. There is no iron rice bowl. That is all gone in new capitalist-with-a-socialist-face China. People were jumping because of rotten conditions, low-pay, too much stress, complete control of their lives. When someone is working 60 hours pay for $150 a week, that is wrong, especially when the product they make is much more valuable that that. That is the profit off of one iPad. How many hundreds do they assemble a week?

Chinese workers don't have the right to strike. They can't control their own unions.

Writing responses to this kind of thinking makes me wonder if it's an apple/foxcomm employee trolling

Completely inaccurate. It is well known the suicides were a result of the death benefits for families.

 

[brdeveloper]

...
The problem with these "conservative Americans" driven by individualistic "puritan/calvinistic" values is that if a person is not successful for whatever reason, it's because he/she is not "working hard enough" or worse, "not chosen by God".
...

Yep... this would make sense if every person was born and grew up in the same conditions, but this is not the case in a strongly liberal country. However, USA promoted nice initiatives like quotas in universities only recently implemented in Brazil. So USA is not so liberal as it looks like. Only a small portion - even though influential - of "conservative Americans" is still influenced by this religious moralism... or I hope that.

 

[fidelityrevo]

Completely inaccurate. It is well known the suicides were a result of the death benefits for families.

You didn't say how it is inaccurate, just asserting to to be so doesn't make it so. There has been speculation the death benefits influenced the suicide. The point I was trying to make is that working conditions were bad, the workers underpaid and felt miserable. Saying they could just quit is true, but at what consequence?

 

[Hakone]

This is similar to the factories in Japan where people work 60-65hr weeks. My friend worked there and never heard anyone complain. If they want to work, let them work.

 

[jimbobb24]

This story is a lie

It is impossible, completely impossible that workers know better than rich American agitators. How could they want something that we don't think they can possibly want? I cannot believe this rubbish!

These workers - they have actual hopes, aspirations, and rational plans? I thought they existed for our thoughtful reflection and as an opportunity to attack their evil employer.

 

[brdeveloper]

This is similar to the factories in Japan where people work 60-65hr weeks. My friend worked there and never heard anyone complain. If they want to work, let them work.

In Brazil, there is a lot of japanese descendants that go working in these factories for a year or two. They learn japanese and get some extra money to spend in Brazil when they come back. Different than having to work indefinitely in Foxconn, getting money which is a low income in practically any ocidental country and having no place to go back when he/she gets tired of overwork.

 

[macnchiefs]

The workers shouldn't be concerned about reduced hours. They should be concerned about their hourly pay. Fix the hourly pay and then you fix the need for overtime.

If foxconn is not able to pay them more since their margins are too small due to what Apple is paying then Apple should be more than happy to help their manufacturing partners comply to fair labor standards by paying foxconn more per device manufactured. Apple can then decide to either pass on the cost to us the consumer or make a conscious decision accept a little less margin than what they have today, which is beyond good considering their cash stockpile.

see, that was easy...

 

[poorracerkid]

Next thing you know everybody will be complaining about the resulting increased prices of apple products and I will just shake my head...

 

[brdeveloper]

Next thing you know everybody will be complaining about the resulting increased prices of apple products and I will just shake my head...

Something like... $1800,00 for the basic 13" MBP?
Or $1400,00 for the basic 16GB iPhone 4S?

This is what brazilians pay for such products and no one is dying because of that.

 

[ohbrilliance]

There should be more flexibility. Nobody to be forced to do overtime beyond a nominal number of hours. Those that want to work overtime to be allowed to, up to a hard limit for their own safety and well-being. Clearly, for some, the new limit is too low.

My two cents regarding salary. $600/month is a huge amount for somebody from a province (perhaps 4 times what a menial job would pay back home?). You have to appreciate how poor the economies are in much of China. A Foxconn job is a great job for many.

 

[jonnysods]

Interesting to see that the West cry foul over their hours and they want them. Good on them for piping up and saying so.

As for the working conditions, if they are awful then I agree with others wanting to step in and make sure that they are protected.

When I was younger I wanted to work 80+ hours per week and our union said no, I couldn't work more than 12 hours per shift, had to have 2 days off in a row every two weeks etc. It sucked!

 

[seashellz]

Foxconn assembles virtually ALL electronics companies products

so spread the word far and wide that these companies also rely on "slave labour" conditions to manufacture their products....List from Wikipedia
-----------------------
Acer Inc. (Taiwan)[36]
Amazon.com (United States)[37] Kindle
Apple Inc. (United States)[38]
Cisco (United States)[39]
Dell (United States)[40]
Hewlett-Packard (United States)[41]
Intel (United States)[42]
Microsoft (United States)[43] Windows phone etc
Motorola Mobility (United States)[40]
Nintendo (Japan)[44]
Nokia (Finland)[38]
Samsung Electronics (South Korea)[45]
Sony (Japan)[46]
Toshiba (Japan) [47]
Vizio (United States)[48]
also Android subcontracts a lot of their work thru Foxconn via the companies above

 

[jackc]

so spread the word far and wide that these companies also rely on "slave labour" conditions to manufacture their products....List from Wikipedia

You mean list of companies making poor workers better off.

 

[fidelityrevo]

It is impossible, completely impossible that workers know better than rich American agitators. How could they want something that we don't think they can possibly want? I cannot believe this rubbish!

These workers - they have actual hopes, aspirations, and rational plans? I thought they existed for our thoughtful reflection and as an opportunity to attack their evil employer.

Duh, aspirations, my god, is that why there have been wild cat labor actions for better wages and working conditions in Foxcomm plants in spite of the lack of unions? My goodness, do you support that Jim Bob? Or are cheap electronics build by people reduced to selling their labor in slave like conditions is what you want? After all they are "willing" to work hard. Why I imagine you think slavery in this country wasn't so bad. All the nasty talk about the slave owners being bad. The blacks never had it so good did they? These are the same kind of arguments used to justify slavery and jim crow in this country.

It's disgusting to see in this forum so much ugly selfishness, dressing up impossible conditions to justify exploitation. Why was it that China was so poor? Perhaps a few centuries of colonialism followed by a mass uprising is the explanation. And also decades economic embargo to try to crush the socialist state that the Chinese people tried to establish. China wasn't always poor, it was made poor by colonialists and the comprador class that worked with them.

Finally with the rise of Deng Shao Ping, the sellout's initiated a capitalist transformation, turning over the labor of hundreds of millions of Chinese to the highest bidder.

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There should be more flexibility. Nobody to be forced to do overtime beyond a nominal number of hours. Those that want to work overtime to be allowed to, up to a hard limit for their own safety and well-being. Clearly, for some, the new limit is too low.

My two cents regarding salary. $600/month is a huge amount for somebody from a province (perhaps 4 times what a menial job would pay back home?). You have to appreciate how poor the economies are in much of China. A Foxconn job is a great job for many.

Ever been to China? I lived there. I do believe how poor, but money is not everything. Since the Deng Shao Ping era began, the level of pollution is staggering. Mass poisonings have soared because of lack of environmental regulation. Life may not have offered many conveniences, but people had homes, jobs, etc. Now they are being driven off the land.

Life is better materially for many city dwellers, but most of the population is still rural. Much of the urban population exists in conditions that are high stress and low pay. These are the ones with jobs at Foxcomm. The money is not the only issue, the lack of decent housing, working conditions and environmental issues are also important. All are bad under FoxComm and Apple.

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Something like... $1800,00 for the basic 13" MBP?
Or $1400,00 for the basic 16GB iPhone 4S?

This is what brazilians pay for such products and no one is dying because of that.

If that happens, Apple will manufacture domestically in the US for the domestic market.

 

[mobilebuddha]

Note: They didn't complain about too much work, us stupid american morons complained that they worked too much.

Just thought I'd clarify it for you.

So they complaint about having too much work then now still complaining about having less work?!

 

[wakirin]

I'm from China

The truth is, Foxconn actually offers a much better working enviornment and payment than most of the companies around it.

Every time Foxconn raises their salary, all the companies around has to follow, otherwise there will be no one to work for them.

If Foxconn is hiring, people will leave their current jobs and queue for hours to just get an application form.

 

[charlituna]

When someone is working 60 hours pay for $150 a week, that is wrong,

not when their cost of living is a third that. And the workers want to work that much

and if using my brain make me a Pro Apple/Foxconn troll, thank you for the compliment.

If you don't like what I say then feel free to ignore me

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There should be more flexibility. Nobody to be forced to do overtime beyond a nominal number of hours.

who says they were. None of them claim they were being forced. They say they want to work the overtime to make more money and now they are upset that they are being told to go home.

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You mean list of companies making poor workers better off.

Actually perhaps not. There is zero evidence that any company but Apple is doing squat about worker conditions. And several articles implying that said other companies (that number about 70) wish Apple had kept their mouths shut because now their workers will likely demand the same, use the same press tactics etc.

 

[Marlor]

The workers shouldn't be concerned about reduced hours. They should be concerned about their hourly pay. Fix the hourly pay and then you fix the need for overtime.

Most of these workers are there for a year to earn as much as possible, and set themselves up for the future. They see it as a year of crazy work at a place that pays well above average, to give themselves a big head-start in life.

No matter what the pay is, they will want to work as much as possible. What is the point sitting around in an industrial park wasting time? They just want to earn as much as they can in as short a period as possible, and go home.

Wages rises of 70% have been announced in some of Foxconn's factories, but the workers still want more overtime. If they're going to be put through the pain of being away from their loved ones for a year or more, they want to be working like crazy to make the most of it.

 

[kaplanreject]

Oh, I get that. What you don't get is that their pay isn't due to a free market. It's manipulated by the Chinese government in many ways, not the least of which is rigging their currency. So you go ahead and keep dreaming that you're in favor of a "free-market" if you like. I'll recognize that you're really encouraging a system where the people who make the electronics (not just Apple's), clothing, toys, etc. that you buy can't afford to buy them!

Definitely not. I am in no way encouraging slave labor. I base many of my purchases as to whether or not it is made in the USA. That is my choice, and trust me, most often comes with a premium.

I dont always have that discretion with all products though.

The bottom line is, these people are trying to work as much as possible, as quick as possible, to better their situation as they need. Who are you, or anyone else, to try and control that. It may not seem like much, but Id be willing to bet, even the loss of fifty dollars per week (adjusted at there salary) would cause tremendous hardships at home.

You want a solution, move the labor force back to the US. Let the unions take control. We have plenty of workers who would love to have new jobs.

But be prepared for quite a price increase in your favorite Apple products. I know I can afford em and would be more than willing to pay the premium for the economic increase. Would you?

 

[b166er]

On my way to work today I heard this story on KWY and it basically said the opposite. That the workers were frustrated with too much OT and they wanted their hours cut back some.

It all depends on who you interview and who is doing the reporting. I would imagine that's the same for every company regardless of the country.

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The first article specifically stated increased pay to make up for less OT hours.

And not to nitpick, but I would describe those things you mentioned as "benefits" and not compensation. Compensation is what you are given in exchange for the work you do...benefits are just that, benefits.

More hourly pay still does not necessarily equal more money. Some of these workers were doing A LOT of overtime. Cutting the OT in half and giving them a few more cents an hour probably won't equal out to what they were used to getting. 10 more hours pay = more than 10 regular (non OT) hours at a higher rate.

 

[bondr006]

The lazy ass's here in the USA want to make the Chinese more like themselves. Do as little as possible for as much as we can get with a huge entitlement mentality. No one understands that is why nothing can be manufactured here and then sold for a fair price while still making a profit. I vote we leave the Chinese the hell alone! They are a hard working people who still have excellent work ethics that don't mind working hard to earn their pay. Something that has been entirely lost here in the USA.