Apple Sued For Turning Workers Into Slaves 1153
SwiftyNifty writes "Apple employees are putting together a class action lawsuit for not receiving overtime pay. A Lawsuit filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law.
Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude, or 'modern day slaves,' for lack of better words."
pathetic (Score:5, Interesting)
Equating earning $100k and working in an air conditioned office longer than you expected with SLAVERY disparages the memories of those who were whipped to near death while working in fields, and paid nothing.
I think the court should order those workers to work on plantations without pay for a while, then reconsider their use of the word "slavery."
Re:My Wife's A Teacher (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm very sorry that your well paid strong union backed wife has an expectation from her superiors to maintain and improve her level of competence at the cost of her time. They're supplying the facilities and materials all she has to do is show up and look like shes learning just like her students.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:2, Interesting)
actually when you're working as a subsistence farmer, you're at least growing your own food so you don't have to waste the crap pay you get on buying food from someone else. the working conditions, while they might not be great on a farm, are a damn sight healthier than they are in an electronics factory. i don't think your argument that their lives are better simply because they bring home money instead of food is very well thought out.
Re:Overexaggerate Much? (Score:3, Interesting)
Debt bondage? I wonder if not being able to quit your job because you need to make mortgage payments counts? Maybe people will look back on our era of a credit driven economy and consider us all bloody indentured.
(Incidentally, NEO isn't outside the Earth gravitational field. Its just that in orbit everything is falling at the same rate and thus appears to be relatively weightless)
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
Though I don't necessarily agree with the grandparent post, I just wanted to point out here that you could replace the word "good" with "bad" in the above paragraph and it would be equally true.
And yes, I agree with you, I think it would be pretty enlightening to have an actual conversation with some of these "sweat factory" workers to see how really happy or unhappy they are. All the media attention on this subject is pretty much always biased one way or the other, I find it almost impossible to figure out what the actual situation is. Which is too bad, because I would let it affect my purchasing decisions if I actually knew the truth. As it is though, I can't even follow the number of boycotts that are called for left and right on every product under the sun, so I'd go crazy trying to do the "right thing".
Re:Slaves, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't care what you do, whether its work in the cafe or do QA or CS or clean the fucking toilets, there's probably about 10,000 people across the country who'd happily switch places with each of the malcontents at Apple, for a chance to work at such a stable, growing, employee-friendly company.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:2, Interesting)
There are enough real slaves in the world... (Score:2, Interesting)
Agreed--they should be compensated for their time, but they shouldn't be calling it slavery. Slavery is a massive problem. We have millions of people worldwide (including many in the US) who actually do live as slaves.
The difference between not being allowed to take your meal breaks and being told you'll need to be raped until you've earned your way out of an $80,000 debt is... the difference between a mosquito bite and being impaled by a triceratops. Twice. Each day.
Only it's harder, because after you've been a slave, people look at you differently, and you look at yourself differently. Sometimes your family won't have anything to do with you, and it's common to have major health problems or psychological problems because of it. And then there's the trick of trying to get back into society.
River of Innocents [riverofinnocents.com] is a good, accessible primer on the subject. The Wikipedia Human Trafficking page also has some info.
Re:pathetic (Score:3, Interesting)
Point taken, people are exaggerating when they talk about slavery. Perhaps sharecropping would be a more adequate analogy.
Also, keep in mind that $100k in Silicon Valley ain't much in an area where the average small house is $700k and poverty level is below $50k.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
A quick Google search http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=bmw+unionization+U.S.+plants [google.com] tells me that the U.S. plant is non-unionized but pays competitive wages.
Toyota does the same thing in the US. They pay union wages and union benefits in order to keep the union out. Some of their plants have unionized and Toyota is very careful to make sure that non-union plants keep pace with the wages and benefits of the union plants. If you are getting the same benefits without paying union dues, why would employees want a union? Makes sense on both sides as long as Toyota has a few union shops to keep them honest.
To be fair to GM and Ford, they have a generation or two of union costs on them that the new Toyota and Honda ventures do not. Let's see if the Asian manufactures can continue as they are now after they have as many US retirees as US employees. Maybe they can, but I'll be surprised.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
So how does this compare, to BMW for example, where their German workforce is also highly unionized? Have they essentially done the same thing as the U.S. automakers, essentially shipping jobs away from heavy regulations in favor of lighter ones?
I don't think it's so much the strength of the labor regulations - though if you're going to move, choosing less restrictive countries makes sense. But I think it's more of a "do-over". Once your workforce has gone union in a particular country, it's pretty much impossible to un-unionize it, so you basically have to move it overseas somewhere and fight the unionization move there if you want to survive. So Japanese and German companies can make cars in the US, the US companies can make cars in Mexico, etc.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions aren't needed where people are treated fairly. The union has been trying to get it's way into foreigned-owned car manufactureres like Toyota and Nissan for years. AFAIK, the UAW has been unable to succeed. Twice the vote to unionized at Nissan has been voted down 2 to 1 [nytimes.com].
Personally I have no respect for unions anymore since they are actively trying to unionize illegal workers [cnn.com]. The union was supposed to be about protecting American jobs, not encouraging those who are breaking the law. Now it's all about the $$$.
But the only real way to get manufacturers back in the US is for it to be more expensive for goods from overseas to come into the US than to be manufactured here. But neither party seems willing to do anything to stop US companies from outsourcing to countries with minimal wages and even more minimal safety practices.
Re:import limits? (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't they do this as the result of import limits?
That could very well be true also. I live a county or two over from the BMW plant here in South Carolina, a plant that is being doubled in size curently, and also doubling it's workforce. BMW was quoted in the paper saying it was cheaper for them to make the cars here and ship them to Germany and the rest of the EU mostly due to the weak dollar. I'm sure there are a million other reasons, but that was their statement.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
To be fair to GM and Ford, they have a generation or two of union costs on them that the new Toyota and Honda ventures do not. Let's see if the Asian manufactures can continue as they are now after they have as many US retirees as US employees. Maybe they can, but I'll be surprised.
The extra generation of union costs that have really brought down the big 3 (2 1/2 really) were the pension funds and healthcare. Pensions are no longer expected in new factories since most workers under the age of 30 have no traces of the concept in their memory. If the foreign manufacturers can find ways to keep health care costs under control they will continue to have a serious advantage over GM and Ford and be able to keep the "built in the USA" perception.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:4, Interesting)
Legislation draws a line on which to build a contract, that way there is no reason for bitter strife between company and unions about very basic things like health care and pensions.
The weirdest is that Germany does not have a legal minimum wage yet any reputable(!) company pays well above what is minimum in comparable countries.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
If the foreign manufacturers can find ways to keep health care costs under control they will continue to have a serious advantage over GM and Ford...
My brother works for a Toyota plant. They have a pharmacy on site where employees can get over the counter medicine for free. Toyota pays 100% of his monthly premium and his coverage is significantly better than any I've had anywhere I've worked. They already absorb much more of their employees' health care costs than most corporations, which they can do thanks to little retiree benefit costs right now.
...and be able to keep the "built in the USA" perception.
Perception? Their vehicles are "built in the USA" more so than the so-called American car companies.
Re:Queue the jokes, and something serious... (Score:3, Interesting)
You are correct: all of Europe put together is competitive with the American economy. That's pretty impressive, given that they're pulling a lot of dead weight (cough, France).
In terms of actual efficiency, however, we're beating the crap out of you, and the reason why is because your labor laws are too business unfriendly. Competition is good for the market. If workers are willing to work for the wage, what's the problem? Why artificially raise the bar for businesses?
I'm not feeling a lot of sympathy for people working at Apple. Work there for a few years, and you can get a job anywhere just on the cache`.
Re:Slaves, eh? (Score:1, Interesting)
They should be compensated for their time if the manager or company asks them to work over time or extra days. If they are trying to meet their schedule and need to work overtime, most companies do not pay since that is the choice of professionals. However, some managers schedule so poorly that professionals must work many extra hours to meet a nearly impossible schedule. These managers and the company do not even try to get overtime approved for their people. That is the slavery part. Been there - done that
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem continues to be:
1. Man power requirements (You need an electrician to change the break room's lightbulb. No, it can't be the same electrician that changes the factory floor lightbulb.)
2. Incrediblly stupid retirement plans. Among them the "Economy Killer" 'defined benefit' plans instead of 401Ks. They killed the airlines before big oil did, and they killed Detroit.
Re: unions (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked as a contractor at Chrysler and maintained their driving simulator. There was a union guy in the lab that was responsible for moving stuff around (I'd get fired if I moved a PC, I had to ask him to do it). Since we weren't moving stuff around much, he spent most of the day sleeping. Every once and a while the mock-up shop needed him to build a 1-1 scale car out of wood. It would take him a few days to build an exact replica of a new vehicle. The work he did (does?) was amazing.
Long story short: people with great potential and skills are sitting around doing nothing.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of them - as I said before - were subsistence farmers and most have no education. None at all. They can't read or write.
At least at Foxconn where iPods and iPhones are made, all the workers have equivalent of high school educations and must be able to read and write. They must read instruction cards for their stations and write test results down on carrier cards.
I used to work for a company like this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
Toyota has an engine plant in WV, which used to be a very pro-union state. The UAW attempted to get into the plant and the vote went against them. Toyota had a great sign outside the facility:
"Toyota 25 years Manufacturing in the USA...
No Plant Closings...
No Layoffs...
No Union!"
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but plenty of countries have highly skilled workers with sane working hours. If there's not enough work to go around, the government should force companies to pay overtime when employees work over 40 hours, and then there will be incentive to spread the work around.
I get the impression that the Chinese government is more interested in advancing their global power and economy, and are willing to let their citizens pay the price to get there.
Re:Queue the jokes, and something serious... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
actually when you're working as a subsistence farmer, you're at least growing your own food so you don't have to waste the crap pay you get on buying food from someone else. the working conditions, while they might not be great on a farm, are a damn sight healthier than they are in an electronics factory.
You live and work in the city, don't you. As someone who was both raised in a third-world country and worked on a farm, I can tell you that, although a good, hard day's work is rewarding, it's not nearly as romantic as TV makes it seem. Also, it is the goal of almost everyone I've known to "grow up" and "get a job in the city". See, they have the same romantic notion as you do, but in reverse.
I can tell you though that those people who are lucky enough to get hired by a multi-national corporation to work in the factory are grateful for the work and pay. They would work longer hours if they could because it means more money for their families. Having the do-gooders from first-world countries barge in, "improve" their pay and working conditions to the point where the workforce is downsized really pisses them off.
Americans and Europeans are soft and spoiled when it comes to working and earning a living. I work in IT. I am considered an "exempt" employee. I'm payed to make sure things get done and work correctly, period. If I had to do that in the confines of a 9-5 work day, while having to go through an approval and justification process every time I needed to take over time, I could not do my job nearly as well. I don't get over time. I often work 60-hour weeks. I have over 3 months of unused vacation time. Boo Hoo. If it's that bad I can quit. I can quit because I have a good education and a marketable skill. I get paid well for what I do.
Bringing this back to the Apple engineers: I think they are whiners. I think they should go work for Dell, or McDonalds. If they didn't want to work the long hours they should have quit. If enough people do that Apple will have to change their policies. However, I'll bet there are 10 people who'd kill to get a chance to take their job, even knowing the conditions. No one *owes* you a job. My contract says that I can be let go at any time, without notice. I have to sign a new contract every July. I'm not overly worried though. I know that what I do is valuable. I know that I am good at what I do.
I give the company good value for their money and in exchange I get a fair salary and good benefits. I put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Would I like to earn more? Sure. Who wouldn't? Am I worth more? Probably. Can my employer afford to pay me more? Not right now. If I can do something to save them money and make them more productive then I may be able to negotiate a better wage. Do they owe it to me? Absolutely not. It's my job to save them money and make them more productive.
Not everyone sees it that way, of course. We get new kids, right out of college who grumble about not making as much as I do, when I've been doing this for 25 years and have been working here for more than 10 years. They think the world owes them a living. They show up to work late. Go home early. Get drunk on the weekend and call in sick every Monday. They stay up so late playing XBox that they are half asleep at work the next day. An they have the gaul to complain about how much they earn and how unfair their bosses are. Whining babies!
Well, I don't know how this rant got to where it is from what I was responding to, but just putting food on you own table by working on a farm is not always enough. Especially if you need to pay for other things, like medical bills, an education, clothes, etc. Working on a farm is not the glamour life you're making it out to be.
Re:who pays a cultist? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Apple should be commended for turning slaves into workers!
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:1, Interesting)
Are you kidding? Why do you want to mess with min. wage fast food jobs? I mean...these are NOT meant to be living wages. They are they are there for high school and college kids to earn extra money while in school. You raise the pay, etc....well, fast food isn't the bargain it should be. Although, that might not be a bad thing in retrospect. Maybe making it more $$, would drive people to actually start cooking at home again? Eating healther? Family meals at home again??
Hmm..I don't eat fast food very often, I like to cook, and would rather save up to go to a $$$ meal with fine wine and service, and foods that are fancier than I'd usually do. But, the other day, I had to stop with a friend and grab a McWendy's or something. The meal was like $7 or so. I mean, nearly $10 fucking dollars for crab burgers, fries and drink??? When did that stuff get expensive? And man...the size of the food and presentation, has really gotten shoddy over the past decade...
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a very American way of running unions. I just want to point out that it works differently in other countries (I used to be a union rep abroad)
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, and when unions in Europe strike they pretty much grind the entire nation to a halt.
I am convinced that unions have crippled the automakers, but I do also agree that management has brought this on themselves. They're constantly reacting to the market instead of innovating. And there seems to be this endless stream of poor decisions. Instead of improving the overall lineup they keep focusing on individual, flagship models they think will somehow turn everything around for them.
I think Chrysler is pretty much doomed with nothing compelling in their lineup and they seem ill-equipped to address high fuel prices. Ford has an excellent inventory of cars available overseas that they stupidly haven't imported to the US. GM is currently showing the most potential, but they've got a bloated lineup and they're still making some questionable decisions. They're still focused on the symptoms and not on the source of their problems.
The problem with unions is that they're out for their own interests and are often willing to run a company into the ground if they dont get their way. What's troubling is this push to eliminate private ballots which the democrats seem keen on supporting. Basically, union leaders would be privy to how employees have voted and could more easily pressure them into voting their way. I'm shocked this is even being seriously considered. It seems unconstitutional to me.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
No, they assemble in the US because of the anti-competitive proctectionist tariffs in place on auto imports to the US. It costs them the same as the big three, it's just that they are better and more efficiently run companies. All this bullshit about union costs dragging them down is a smokescreen; Germany is one of the most highly unionized countries in the world with astronomical rates of tax, yet BMW seem to manage ok.
And Mercedes, too. They do well because they make a superior product. Their cars have a certain allure due to name recognition and prestige in some demographics, but I don't think that's the key to their success. The reason they are so successful is that they design and build cars very well. A typical Mercedes requires a tiny fraction of the maintenance of a typical Ford. My 30 year old Mercedes sedan with 400k+ miles has its original breaks, has never had its alignment adjusted or brakes replaced (!) and it drives better than most brand new sports cars. My 10 year old Ford Explorer with ~120k miles had its brakes fall off while driving every 5-10k miles if I don't replace them first, that is until I bought non-Ford brakes, after which they performed much better. It's also on its third transmission and second engine.
Re:Just until the suite is resolved,, (Score:2, Interesting)
I work for a huge semiconductor company (4B revenue last year).
The Engineering department is all Asians and more specifically, a lot of H-1B workers.
When I got there I was surprised to find that the company culture and expectation was 10-12 hours a day at least, 6-7 days a week.
I could come in at any time of the night, 3AM whatever, and there would be people there.
The thing is, you have to join the group - these people are 'happy' to work these long hours, they're H-1B, and just happy to be in the US. And all of this on a salary.
In the beginning I tried doing the 8 hr workday and people would give me nasty looks because I was 'leaving early'.
I shot an email over to HR and cited CA labour law relating/specifically listing our job as a hourly non-exempt job.
Calculating the amount of hours I was putting in and the amount of overtime I would get paid, I calculated around 55k missed wages in a year.
Needless to say, within 3 months our group was called in and given a presentation by HR - something about 'the law changing recently' (bs). We were to be made hourly, we were to have at least a day a week where we have to not work, and a curfew of 10PM.
Surprisingly, I was expecting them to cut wages like IBM did, but they didn't.
I know one of my coworkers had previously put in 152 hours in two weeks. It seems that work is life for the Chinese coworkers I have. And if you don't keep up, you stand out.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a member of a union here in the UK, and have been for fifteen years. Any employee who isn't is a damned fool.
The union does *not* set my pay - that's a matter for me to negotiate with my boss. Nor does the union tell me how to vote. Unions these days, at least for professionals like me, are mostly about me keeping informed of what my rights are, and having free access to specialist land-sharks in the unlikely event that I ever need an employment lawyer. In that sense it's really just an insurance policy, insuring me against my employer being a dick.
If I were an easily-replaced manual labourer, then I'd appreciate collective bargaining, but even so, I would still have a choice of whether to take part in it or whether to make my own deal with the boss.
US unions appear to be seriously broken and can't be compared to unions elsewhere.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
Now personally I believe this is China's problem to deal with internally and we have our own domestic poor that we're not handling that well, but to try to escape any moral association with taking advantage of disgusting labor conditions and wages by making uninformed generalizations and excuses about how self-limiting they are...
Assuming you're American, like me, I disagree that this isn't our problem. Paying people $50/month to work 15 hour days is making America and its industries poor. This is non-intuitive to a lot of people, probably most people. After all, it seems like our exploiting this cheap labor market should mean that we're coming out as the economic victors. However, the goods being manufactured are being sold back in the U.S. The net effect of the exploitation for us, from a purely monetary standpoint, is that money that was circulating in our country is now circulating in another country, making our country poorer.
Yes, it would be more expensive to have the manufacturing done in America. However, the money spent to pay people in America would increase the spending power of Americans, who are the target market of the majority of the goods manufactured for American companies.
Thus, the astronomically higher expense of paying American workers would make these businesses sustainable (more money comes in to make up for money going out) and their workers' quality of life sustainable. My argument is absolutely proven by integrating over the effect described in my first paragraph. The result is called the trade deficit, and the fact that it is a huge positive number proves that the cost "savings" made by outsourcing to cheaper labor markets must disappear in the long term. Luckily, by then the executives in charge of Nike, McDonald's, etc. will be able to depart with huge severance packages before that happens.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, you would think that but guess what, there is a bill called "The Employee Free Choice Act" which ostensibly aims to allow people to unionize more easily at work places. However, and here's the kicker, the union gets to see how you vote.
So, if you're like me and recognize the sham that modern unions are, and want to vote No, do you think Mr. Union next to me will be very happy with my "free choice"? Of course not? And what will Mr. Union do? The very thing the unions are accusing employers of doing: threaten me or even retaliate.
Yeah, unions are wonderful so long as you work in the union itself sucking off the wages of others.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
But my main question is, what authority has proclaimed that fast food "ought" to be a bargain? Is there some law somewhere that I'm not aware of? Some moral imperative? Just because something has been some way in the past doesn't mean it has to continue that way.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)
You're very lucky. Teacher's unions, by contrast, seem to barely boost income by enough to cover the union dues. I've watched as they made very minimal progress on health insurance, which for part time people is nonexistent, so those folks don't get any real benefit from the union at all.
All unions buy you is collective bargaining. If the employer can be bargained with, it's a win. If they can't, then it isn't a win. If they can be bargained with, then generally you would better off negotiating with your boss for a raise or extra time off or whatever, at least from what I've witnessed.
By the time a union becomes so ingrained in the corporate culture that they've made things as seemingly utopian as the long list of things your union provides, they've also usually turned it into a work environment where nobody wants to work out of fear of union grievances for trying something new and attempting to advance in their careers, where there is no real potential for learning new skills, and where lots of dead weight employees are kept around because the union won't let the company cut their jobs, resulting in a poorly run company that barely gets by and eventually lays off a third of its workforce.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
Unions will negotiate a "quota" for each job. I worked in a union shop, and was moved into another persons position for a day. The job was to program EPROMs (remember those?). The quota was obviously set when it was done using a slow, single chip programmer, as the quota was about 2 per hour. The hardware did 16 at a time in less than 2 minutes. Unions don't like workers to bust the quota. I had to run around and look for a corner to hide in for most of the day.
That is just ONE of the specific ways that unions add overhead. I could list many more:
- 'senior' employees being promoted over 'experienced' ones.
- job division. Person A can't pick up a wrench (it's a mechanics job). Person B can't flip a switch (it's the electrician's job). Neither can turn on the water (it's the plumber's job).
- I had an engineer come to me one day and ask that I take a box to the other building. I put the empty box on a cart and start down the hall with it. He walked beside me. When I asked what the hell he was doing, he said that he had to go there anyway. !!!???!!! He wasn't allowed to push a cart with an empty box on it. That was a UNION job.
After a while, it just gets boring listing all the ways that a union can fubar a company.
Re:What would Stallman say? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What would Stallman say? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:News... (Score:3, Interesting)
So when management violates the law one should just "toughen up and grow a sack"?
Hmm, not coming down on abuse of the law and employee's rights sounds more like cowardice than toughness. There's a big difference between laziness and not allowing some asshole to take advantage of you; until you learn that difference, assholes will be able to take advantage of you by pushing your "work ethic" buttons.
"What? You don't want to work 80 hours a week without compensation? You're lazy/not a team player/want the benefits without putting in the work..."
Yeah, I've heard that spiel before. I bet we all have. It's a scam, a hard-sell tactic to keep you from realizing they are taking advantage of you. My answer to "mandatory unpaid overtime" that I can't switch jobs to get away from just yet is the same one the Soviet subjects had: "You pretend to pay me, I'll pretend to work". You get what you pay for, and that includes employers.
Re:No, *THESE* are slaves (Score:3, Interesting)