Riot Shuts Down Foxconn Plant, Impact on iPhone 5 Production Unclear

[spartig]

Maybe Apple should use some of it's $100bn to PAY IT'S GODDAMN WORKERS.

They are not Apple's workers. They are Foxconn employees. And as I recall Apple did go out of their way to try to get Foxconn employees more pay and better working conditions. How many companies do you know that will go out of their way to make sure another companies employees get treated better?

Not that I think Apple is a saint or anything.

 

[shartypants]

Maybe people broken in to get some free iPhone 5s only to find out they only make the back plate there, so they trashed the place.

 

[andross77]

Can't they just throw suicide nets over them and chain them back to their work areas?

You are a fool.

 

[Frenchjay]

Seriously....

I'd love to see Apple spend some of their $100B+ on bringing their manufacturing back to the US. Of course then they'd have to pay US taxes on that money....

Still, American company - and most valuable in the world - would be awesome to have their products (if not fully) at least mostly made in the USA.

All these other companies will have to follow suit as well as they are also big Foxconn customers.


Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)
Intel (United States)
Microsoft (United States)
Motorola Mobility (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)
Sony (Japan)
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

 

[VenusianSky]

It was only a matter of time that the workers would no longer tolerate the working conditions. IMO, this is the mistake of American businesses outsourcing to a communist country. People only take so much crap, no matter where they are from.

Oh, and this sort of thing was well predicted by many and it is most likely just the beginning.

 

[dvoros]

riot at plant in china

We should get the hell out of there and build a plant here in the USA.

 

[jcmc]

Perhaps macrumors should reconsider the tone of the headlines they regularly use when publishing articles about the various travails of Chinese hardware manufacturing.

Whether it's to do with fires, riots or suicides, this site gives the impression that the most important part of the story is whether spoiled westerners might have to suffer the hardship of using a year old phone for another 2 weeks.

The hardship here is poor people doing a crappy job in awful conditions. That should be the story and that should be the headline. By all means report on the impact on production within the story itself but this is not the headline here and really shouldn't be used as such. It infers a callousness to the plight of workers.

 

[NunoBerny]

The government of China will make sure these people stay peaceful. No other institution can provide 79,000 jobs overnight.

Especially $1 a day jobs... ;(

 

[jrswizzle]

This guy gets it.

For capitalism to be peaches and cream here at home, you have to export the misery. But wait, things are terrible here, what do you think that means for the rest of the world where we've installed capitalistic regimes?

Things are bad here, but without starting an unwanted political debate I'd argue Capitalism - with all of its perceived faults - is still the best option we have given America's economic and overall status in the world.

Sure beats the alternatives of outrageous taxes, gas at $6/gallon and corrupt dictatorships where one man/family holds all the wealth/power.

In America, our corruption is spread out . Wherever there are human beings there will be corruption and misery. Just the nature of the world.

----------

All these other companies will have to follow suit as well as they are also big Foxconn customers.


Acer Inc. (Taiwan)
Amazon.com (United States)
Cisco (United States)
Dell (United States)
Hewlett-Packard (United States)
Intel (United States)
Microsoft (United States)
Motorola Mobility (United States)
Nintendo (Japan)
Nokia (Finland)
Sony (Japan)
Toshiba (Japan)
Vizio (United States)

None of those companies has the money Apple does, which is why I suggested Apple be the one to do it.

 

[saturn88]

Maybe Apple should use some of it's $100bn to PAY IT'S GODDAMN WORKERS.

NO-o. It's not $100bln. It's $140bln.

Seriously, according to the recent report Apple spends $199 for iPhone parts and $8 for manufacturing (mostly Chinese labor), which translates probably to 2 hours of labor. Can Apple afford paying for 2 hours of labor here in US instead?

 

[Moshe1010]

Employees have found that the manager is using Galaxy S3

 

[haruhiko]

富士康太原廠無組裝新手機 (22:50)
鴻海今晚表示，受騷亂影響而於今天停工的富士康大陸山西太原廠明早復工；該廠並無組裝iPhone 5。
聲明表示，旗下富士康位於山西的太原廠，因配合調查的暫時停工已告一段落，25日將復工，整體業務不受影響，據報太原廠營運並無受到任何波及與損失。

鴻海指出，目前當地政府正全權處理協助鴻海了解事發原因，並給予全力協助，盡快讓事件平息恢復正常運作。

太原廠員工宿舍今日凌晨發生鬥毆事件，後發展成大規模群毆事件。鴻海科技集團發言人胡國輝(Louis Woo)稱，目前事態已得到控制。

他指出，兩個不同生產線的一些員工在宿舍發生鬥毆，最後在整個工廠引發大規模騷亂。他沒有詳述工廠的受損情況，但網上流傳的微博照片顯示，商店玻璃被砸、汽車被推翻並且有防暴警察出動，更傳出一度出動二千公安進駐。

市場傳言太原廠與蘋果iPhone 5生產有關，鴻海表示，目前集團並無在山西太原廠進行iPhone 5產品組裝，因此iPhone出貨不受任何影響。

至於受傷人員部分，鴻海指出，集團正全力照顧傷者，目前並無任何人死亡，集團也在調查部分傷者是否為集團員工。

對於事件善後處理，鴻海表示，太原廠區安全管理部已經組織人員加強巡邏，發現異常事件即時報告；園區主管將對產品處員工做好層層動員，對各級主管分配任務、責任到人，重點做好員工的安撫工作。

(綜合)

According to Hong Kong media the factory does not produce iPhone 5 parts.

 

[jrswizzle]

NO-o. It's not $100bln. It's $140bln.

Seriously, according to the recent report Apple spends $199 for iPhone parts and $8 for manufacturing (mostly Chinese labor), which translates probably to 2 hours of labor. Can Apple afford paying for 2 hours of labor here in US instead?

I don't think $8 translates to 2 hours of Chinese labor....I mean 2 hours at min. wage in the US would only be about $14-$16. Sure that's almost double manufacturing costs, but when added to the $199 parts, it seems a smaller drop in the bucket.

I'd bet $8 gets more than 2 hours of labor...

 

[h1r0ll3r]

while other sources have indicated that it stemmed from security guards beating workers for unspecified reasons.

LOL. Priceless

 

[curmudgeon32]

I think 100% "made in USA" would be nearly impossible to accomplish, what with all the components that come from all over the place. "Assembled in USA"? Maybe? And to answer the question of how much it would drive up the price, I guess you'd have to figure out the cost of assembly, factor in the shipping costs... Apple has one of (if not the) most sophisticated supply chains in the world. They even corner markets in key components to stymie their competitors. I'd be very interested to read an informed analysis on US-based assembly.

 

[Bezetos]

Macrumors reporting that the iPhone 5 production line has been damaged (OH NOES!!1) but no word regarding casualties. According to CPCW ten people have died (still needs to get confirmed) and a lot of people got injured.

This is just sad. Even if the influence of the riot on the iPhone 5 production line is important for this news portal (it is called Macrumors after all) this story could have been reported differently.

 

[a0me]

I'd be pissed too if I was in China trying to get around using Apple Maps. With the new "update" 90% of the country is now a black hole.

 

[dcorban]

That said, I'd really be interested in knowing just how much more an actual U.S. assembled iPhone would cost. 2x? 3x?

Based on what I know of another industry with increasing Chinese manufacture, it would be more like 10x the cost.

 

[saturn88]

I don't think $8 translates to 2 hours of Chinese labor....I mean 2 hours at min. wage in the US would only be about $14-$16. Sure that's almost double manufacturing costs, but when added to the $199 parts, it seems a smaller drop in the bucket.

I'd bet $8 gets more than 2 hours of labor...

In any case, even foreign car manufacturers (Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, etc) can afford American labor costs. And car manufacturing is much more labor intensive then phone manufacturing.

 

[yanki01]

I'd be pissed too if I was in China trying to get around using Apple Maps. With the new "update" 90% of the country is now a black hole.

lol

 

[kdarling]

It's not even that. We don't have the physical capacity to make these components like china can. We don't have enough engineers to make it work unfortunately it would take us yeaaaars to put out those kind of numbers

Apple's self-serving spiel about needing "hundreds of manufacturing engineers" was just typical deflection on their part, and only applies to places where the final assembly line passes through fifty different people like the iPhone does now.

The US has plenty of engineers of the kind that a robotic factory line would need, which is where Foxconn is heading as well.

Major parts such as CPUs, memory and support chips are already made in the US.

Current labor cost is what, $8 per unit? You could up that by an entire order of magnitude to $80, and Apple would still make more on each phone than most phone makers even if they didn't raise the price.

 

[Mac21ND]

I'd like to see at least a small line of products, similar to the product (RED) line, that at least were assembled in the US. Even if they had a higher price, some people may be willing to pay for it.

 

[Gravity]

It bothers me that I think you're right...

Chinese workers want the same pay and rights as workers everywhere. How funny that the capitalist west leverages the totalitarian state apparatus of a so-called communist country to make sure the slaves stay in line pumping out our tat.

It's no coincidence that Chicago School economic ideas were first rolled out in latin american fascist states. More extreme forms of capitalism can't work without an oppressive state cracking skulls.

 

[jrswizzle]

I think 100% "made in USA" would be nearly impossible to accomplish, what with all the components that come from all over the place. "Assembled in USA"? Maybe? And to answer the question of how much it would drive up the price, I guess you'd have to figure out the cost of assembly, factor in the shipping costs... Apple has one of (if not the) most sophisticated supply chains in the world. They even corner markets in key components to stymie their competitors. I'd be very interested to read an informed analysis on US-based assembly.

Yes, assembled is what I was meaning. I agree with you - would be very interesting read.

 

[rnizlek]

That said, I'd really be interested in knowing just how much more an actual U.S. assembled iPhone would cost. 2x? 3x?

When the NY Times ran a series of articles on Apple's production, they estimated the cost was less than $100 additional, if I recall correctly. The larger issue is one of component sourcing - even if iPhones were assembled here, most of the parts are constructed within a limited geographic area of the plant. Separating the assembly from the supply chain is the larger problem. And Apple doesn't have much control over where their suppliers (i.e. not Foxconn) manufacture.