Riot Breaks Out At Foxconn 456
Presto Vivace writes with news (as reported by Engadget) of a riot at Foxconn's Taiyuan plant, reportedly over guards beating up a worker, and writes "Something is going on at Foxconn. Do any Slashdotters know of a good source for news about Chinese labor disputes?" Reports of the riot are also at Reuters, TUAW, and CNBC, to name a few.
Strange (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
You'd be lucky to find China with those maps.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
You might find it, but it might not be where you expect it.
http://theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com/post/32042128251/taken-on-my-ipad [tumblr.com]
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:5, Funny)
Behold the sense of iHumor.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really, that touchy? It is one of the most common premises of humor - you have a case of obvious issues with/focus on "X", that makes room for funny exaggerations
Humor is usually based on truth. There is nothing true about that image. The whole feed until that images has been humor based on truth.
If you start mixing in fabrications you are polluting all the real examples of issues. Are they all humorously real problems? No-one can tell any more. And it's simply less funny to boot.
yeah, I guess you can
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:4, Insightful)
Based on, but not necessarily true.
Except, ofcourse, as an exaggeration of the other issues that Apple's map software currently has.
No, the whole feed until that image has been Humorous Truths. Now we have a Humorous Exaggeration.
And, as sibling post said, pull the stick out your arse and laugh once and a while.
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:5, Informative)
Hmmm, I've seen that list somewhere before.
http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3138293&cid=41431711 [slashdot.org] in the last Apple story (and in other /. Apple story too but life is too short to go looking).
Is this now the standard reply trotted out to rebuff the iOS6 map problem?
'Think Different' sounds more like Scientology every day.
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, SuperKendall, BasilBrush, and a few others are there to try to eliminate adverse talk about Apple Corp.
I don't know why, but I assume they work for them. I can't really see why they'd die in a ditch defending Apple's relentless unethical and stupid decisions if they were only fans.
I guess there's more to Apple marketing than black turtle necks, rounded corners and misleading ads.
OpenStreetMaps dude, give it more publicity (Score:5, Informative)
Why arent more linux people promoting OSM.
Why isnt Ubuntu using it in its desktop maps app?
Why isnt slashdot using links to OSM maps when ever a map is needed.
The fact that you can download all 9GIG and have a 100% local maps kicks but over all maps, and its OSS for gods sake.
Re:OpenStreetMaps dude, give it more publicity (Score:4, Interesting)
Why arent more linux people promoting OSM.
The agony of trying to get the OSM data and a useful app into my computer. I'll promote it when I figure out how to use it. Playing with gpsdrive on R-Pi lately, ugh.
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, all your examples are from 2010, and from cursory glance, they're all resolved. Also you included at least one link to errors that were appearing in Google Places, not Google Maps.
You might think it's unfair that we're judging a map that's been out for less than a month to one that's been out for years, but if you're going to release a new product it's going to be compared to what is currently available. The fact is, there are too many errors in obvious stuff - misspelled capital cities, duplications of entire islands, famous landmarks with incorrect coastlines. It's a complete abandonment of the philosophy of "It Just Works".
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:5, Funny)
The map is fine - you're just reading it wrong.
Re:Well don't look to Google for answers! (Score:4, Funny)
It is, however, in the Domesday Book.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
You'd be lucky to find China with those maps.
It is right between Italy and Venezuela.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
Not that Venezuela the one floating off the coast of Zambia.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, China's easy to find. It's everywhere else that's missing. [omegadelta.net]
Re:Strange (Score:4, Funny)
In your map of China, there's a lot of something that is not China. Don't worry, here [imgur.com] is the corrected version.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Strange (Score:5, Informative)
I was trying to find the plant in question on IOS Maps, but I don't see it.
Funny you joke, but mainland China considers accurate maps to be a state secret. All exported maps, including those used for GPS units, are required by law to introduce deliberate distortions (although some devices have hacks available to correct them).
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
Oh so you're saying, Apple actually developed iOS 6 maps to please the Chinese government and we shouldn't just ascribe it to incompetence?
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, it's a feature, not a bug. Also, you're holding it wrong.
I know this routine. ;)
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, after years of development, the Reality Distortion Field is now available on iOS apps!
Re: (Score:3)
So you say Apple not only had the iPhone made in China but also the maps? Now it starts to make a lot of sense.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just waiting for the new to break that even bigger riots have been reported from at least three Samsung factories. And Samsung senior executives have been personally executing the rioters. By crucifixion, I expect.
C'mon, you Appleturfers! Time to earn your salary!
Srsly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and slashdot readers are a great source of news from Chinese sweatshop plants because demographics are, like, so close.
Labor disputes (Score:5, Insightful)
"Something is going on at Foxconn. Do any Slashdotters know of a good source for news about Chinese labor disputes?"
This is China. There won't be any news.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that this news like this actually got out is news in itself.
Re:Labor disputes (Score:5, Informative)
There will be tweets (or weibos as the case may be), until the government gets around to blocking them. For example this one [twitter.com] and these [yahoo.com].
It's pretty clear that this wasn't just a little fight, but it seems to be under control at this point. The cops were out in force, and there appear to have been military personnel on the scene as well.
Re:Labor disputes (Score:5, Funny)
This is China. There won't be any news.
Typical western elitist propaganda.
I saw the story prominently covered on Sina Weibo. The Foxconn workers held a contest to see who was the happiest. The winner won the right to shake the Foxconn chairman's hand. So many Foxconn workers wanted to shake the chairman's hand, they all surged forward and broke a fence. Smiling security workers were dispatched to assist the few who received minor injuries.
Re:Labor disputes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Labor disputes (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be an improvement over their fascist government.
Just because someone labels himself one thing doesn't make it so. Allegedly, the US is a republic, you see?
Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Who cares? I'm sitting in a coffee shop sipping on fairtrade coffee on blogging on my retina macbook pro about Obama and talking on my new iphone 5.
Scumbag western liberals: claims to support the working class, gladly buys products from a communist dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Do you suggest that they stop using computers (or, in general, any electronics) completely? That would be "survivalists" then.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you sure it's better because it's made in Britain?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ&t=1m0s [youtube.com]
Are human rights better or worse in China since (Score:4, Interesting)
Western countries starting buying products made there?
Maybe the Western countries aren't the problem. Maybe China is the problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Wait, wait, wait... what do you say there? China just plays by the rules of the free market, you see? They saw there's a market, they tapped into it, they provided goods cheaper than the competition.
Free market good, don't you dare to question that!
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
I know dude!
Here I am, buying cheap electronic components, and I know that by doing so I support a state
where the police can arrest you if they don't like the way you look and your papers don't convince them that you are a good citizen.
A place where any worker can just be fired and replaced without reason.
A state, where workers have no right to organize and might even be arrested for trying.
-But on the other hand, I like the cheap stuff I get from Arizona.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
A single example of a US citizen being arrested for the way they look and not having papers?
They made a movie about that. I think it was called "Rambo".
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
You only asked for one example, so here you go: 23 people arrested for protesting against being fired for trying to form a union. [sott.net] I could find more examples, but you only asked for one.
How about for the way they look even though they have papers? [brownsvilleherald.com].
I have. It's amazing people still think we're #1.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with a "communist dictatorship" (though it should be noted that China is about as far from communism as can be), it has everything to do with companies in the wealthy part of the world using workers in poorer parts of the world as virtual slave labor. It is the epitome of capitalism, for owners to make as much money as possible simply by virtue of already having a lot of it, while paying their workers as little as they can possibly get away with.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It should be noted as well that China, although authoritarian, is not a dictatorship. Apparently people like to throw the "dictatorship" word too easily at anything that is not a democracy.
Re: (Score:3)
What are the "US declared enemies", and who declared them?
Re: (Score:3)
What really hurts is that the Iran is closer to a democracy than China has been in half a century.
Yes, yes, the democracy in the Iran is quite a bit of a show since there are only parties that pretty much offer the same program, but then again, what's the difference to a lot of western countries?
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with a "communist dictatorship" ...
Only too true.
There is a strange irony to the fact that these abuses arise from a combination of the kind of corruption typical of pre-Communist China and unfettered Western-style Capitalism. And hasn't it always been one of the criticisms of Communism, that it stifles progress because nobody feel an incentive to work hard, when the state takes care of you even you are lazy to the bone?
Some Americans in particular imagine that nobody could possibly feel genuinely happy with life under Communism. Well, apart from the "47% that feel they are victims", but they don't count, since they are "plebs", to quote one Tory MP. On that background it is strange that so many of those that sympathise with Socialism are well-educated high-achievers, while so many of the most conservative and reactionary are found amongst those with little or no education.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
China should actually be the shining example of capitalism. A government that supports the creation of companies, while pretty much outlawing any and all labor unions and worker organisation, a bare minimum of worker protection (afaik you can't simply kill them if you don't like them anymore), no interference with your hiring, firing, paying or worker treatment policies...
And STILL we're not happy. What more could we possibly want them to do to be good capitalists?
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are the shining example of capitalism.... and the poster child for why neither unfettered communism nor unfettered capitalism is a system that works.
Re: (Score:3)
And STILL we're not happy. What more could we possibly want them to do to be good capitalists?
Give them guns, bibles and privatized healthcare?
I think of China as a mega-corporation - much like the US would be if led by a single corporation instead of a small bunch of them.
It's certainly not communism - they abandoned that idea when they embraced money instead of working to abolish it. It's not socialism either, after they turned their back on "to each according to his needs". I'd say it's ur-capitalism, also known as greed.
Why not a free market for labor (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder why in many examples of capitalism, all markets are free except labor. If a nation is truly based on capitalist ideas, why not have a market for labor. In this case workers could band together and sell their labor to the highest bidder. For some reason, this is never considered a part of capitalism, which I believe is just a convenient inconsistency by the rich.
Because China does not have a free labor market, it is not a shining example of capitalism. It is a shining example of the powerful taking advantage, which happens everywhere.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You need to stop basing your views on sitcom caricatures.
ker-lap alap alap! (Score:5, Funny)
Is his job a joke? Is his love-life DOA?
Re: (Score:3)
Obvious fake is obvious. No self-respecting liberal would sip coffee -- it *has* to be a latte!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Who cares? I'm sitting in a coffee shop sipping on fairtrade coffee on blogging on my retina macbook pro about Obama and talking on my new iphone 5.
Scumbag western liberals: claims to support the working class, gladly buys products from a communist dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record
You imply that only liberals buy Apple products. They also supply different Android and consumer electronics.
Foxconn produces so much stuff that even buying an American pick-up or SUV is going to potentially have some of their components.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
The funny thing about most "liberals" are... well... they don't get it/aren't really liberal.
The problem with that is, you can't really define things in a binary. It's not a liberal/conservative dichotomy, because there's too many issues to be divided on. How do you define somebody who believes in small government, supports the death penalty in some cases (repeat offender, serial murder, for example), is pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, etc.? Even dividing it on lines of fiscal versus social liberalism is an oversimplification, because then you get people like me, who self identify as a fiscal conservative (shouldn't be spending money we don't have), but still believe in socialized health care and subsidized education on the basis that as a long-term investment they end up increasing tax revenues and pay for themselves. And like you, I also believe that we should be paying for fair trade products (there's a reason I drink Ceylon tea), and avoiding products with blood minerals, because even though they're more expensive, they promote quality of life around the world. Unlike you, I do buy my electronics new, but I am also careful about what I buy, and don't replace them just because something shiner comes along.... I find I get better economy by buying something that's relatively high quality, even though it may be more expensive up front, because it lasts longer.
So what does that make me? A liberal, or a conservative? By American definitions, I'm ultra-left-wing commie pinko liberal (pro-choice, pro-gay rights as well... no I don't support the death penalty, I believe in restorative justice rather than punitive), but by European standards I'm actually pretty conservative, at least fiscally... I'd fit right in in Germany. And this is where the whole thing falls apart, and why we can't draw a binary comparison. :)
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
Who cares? I'm sitting in a coffee shop sipping on fairtrade coffee on blogging on my retina macbook pro about Obama and talking on my new iphone 5.
You do realize that Foxconn is the manufacturer of choice for quite a few PC (and tablet) manufacturers, including Acer, Dell, Toshiba, and Hewlett-Packard, don't you? And that they also manufacture the Playstation 3 and XBox 360, right? As well as Android phones for Motorola Mobility?
I realize it's much easier to just pretend this is an Apple problem, though.
Your 50 Mao membership card is showing. (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Communism and Dictatorship are mutually exclusive (at least in theory).
In implementation, they end up one and the same. See the USSR, Venezuela, Cuba, and post-WWII China.
3. China doesn't have the best human rights record, but they don't exactly have anywhere near the worst one either. The US isn't any saint either:
* The US set up Guantanamo Bay to purposely get around constitutionally guaranteed rights when they were inconvenient.
I see your GITMO and raise you one Tiananmen Square Massacre. In order to put down the event, the CPC brought in military from the countryside to guarantee enforcement of orders. In addition, involvement meant that you would be completely disappeared.
With GITMO and other places, you're not completely removed from existence as deeply as performed in China. Never mind that GITMO treats its detainees quite well compared to China's equivalent - to the point where detained Uighurs are not sent home to China.
In addition, the United States does not have closed regions like Tibet that restrict foreigners from entry.
* The white people who settled in the US basically killed all of the existing red people.
Then you might explain the flood of Han Chinese in Tibet - the same region that has excluded foreigners for purely political reasons.
In addition, the monks get the same treatment if not worse by CPC policies(as implemented, not as written).
* Privacy as a right went out the window a while ago with all the warrant-less wiretaps, GPS vehicle tracking, etc.
* From my understanding, anyone can be detained without trial or attorney, as long as they are classified as a "terrorist".
It takes a LOT more effort to fall foul of those provisions in the US. As for China, you can just tell a bad joke about a government official and you are gone. Even high-up officials like Bo Xilai are not immune to such provisions - even if their family has favor.
In China, there would be no equivalent to the Tea Party or Breitbart that survives in the open.
* The "Child labor" that bleeding hearts in the US complain about was considered normal and routine in the US not all that long ago, and is still considered
normal and even desired in many countries overseas.
Those practices refer to a society that willfully forsakes freedom for all. 50 years will pass and China will still be as despotic towards its workers in deference to its little princes that run their factories like fiefdoms.
The closest I know is some domestic model Sony Vaio models (the most expensive ones) are supposedly 100% "made in Japan" - even those will probably have at least some parts from Taiwan, Korea, etc.
With IBM, some machines do have an order code for a US-friendly setup. That is, the machine will be made from parts that would pass muster with the DoD as being from the US and close allies with the US - China not being one of them. At one time, this also included US assembly of laptops for government contracts but is primarily for their midrange machines.
Re:Your 50 Mao membership card is showing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Venezuela is neither a communist state nor a dictatorship: Under the elected government of Hugo Chavez, it has engaged in some redistribution policies to help the extremely poor, but that's not the same has having a state-planned economy with Five Year Plans or people getting sent to the gulag for political reasons or Great Leaps Forward.
Also, if we're going to allow references to bad things that have happened in the history of a country, the US has to own up to, since the 1930's alone, Japanese-American internment, Jim Crow and the many lynchings that came out of that, the repeated acts of aggression against foreign countries (many of whom present little-to-no threat against the US, like Grenada), overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with brutal dictatorships (Iran and Chile being the most important examples), and occasional acts of putting down political protests with force (e.g. Kent State, Chicago '67, Occupy Wall St). Communist governments often do really bad things. The US government also often does really bad things. I'm in favor of condemning governments when they commit obvious moral evils, regardless of who they are, but thinking that "my government is always good, and their government is always evil" is not a useful or correct position to take.
Re: (Score:3)
Not to mention that the US is the only country to be convicted of terrorism by the international courts. Not that it matters - it's the US, the biggest bully on the block.
Re: (Score:3)
Whitewashing the past and ignoring the significant problems even today and excusing them as "China is worse". Hitler was worse than Stalin.
On one hand, you're right. On the other hand, he's right. China really is worse to live in than the USA by most available metrics. They admit to ten times as many executions per capita than we've got, for example. And then there's the prison labor camps, where cheap consumer goods are assembled with slave labor under the eye of the government. You think that sort of shit has stopped because we're arguing about college students being pressed into forced labor at Foxconn? Please. Christmas lights are still be
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, this tactic [derailingfordummies.com]. The nice thing about this particular bullshit derailing tactic is that there's always someone else who's worse off, so you can use it to effectively stonewall any discussion of any social problem and make sure nothing gets done about any of them. The other nice thing is that - by definition - anyone who can actually talk about their problems is better off than someone who can't, so you can use it to stop anyone talking about issues that affect them.
It's a very convenient way of looking like you care about the poor, the disenfranchised, ... whilst you're actually making sure that nothing gets done to help them. Not very imaginative though; been done before a billion times.
How Much (Score:5, Interesting)
Makes me wonder how much an iPhone would cost to manufacture in the U.S. I wonder how automated the production line could be.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:How Much (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is not so much the labor costs but that we dont have manufacturing facilities here anymore.
It's worse than that, we don't have the supply chains anymore.
You might be able to manufacturer the large structural components and key high-value items here, but then you'd have to import tons of different little bits, individually too low value to spend money to rebuild the supply network, but numerous and specialized -- so you might as well pre-assemble big chunks of it there. At which point, you might as well assemble the whole thing there.
I remember some old Slashdot poster that once related a story about trying to manufacturer some electronic device domestically. They had so much trouble sourcing some minor discrete component, that it turned out it was cheaper to buy finished consumer widgets from China, and salvage that one part to get what they needed.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow. The issue is not labor costs - but that we don;t have manufacturing facilities? Did it never occur to you to wonder why we don't have those facilities any more?
How does disconnected-from-reality drivel like this get modded up?
Re:How Much (Score:5, Insightful)
Equipment costs have always dwarfed manufacturing labor costs in the IC industry. Government subsidized fab construction is a major reason it moved to Asia. And other production like assembling phones is cheaper closer to where the components are made.
Re: (Score:3)
And yet some big companies do manufacture high end equipment in high wage countries. Take Panasonic as an example. Their plasma TVs are made in Japan in a big high tech factory. They also make their laptops in Japan. Samsung manufacturers a lot of stuff in Korea, including phones and screens.
China might be a bit cheaper and is now competitive on quality, but what it really boils down to is making an extra few cents profit on a high value product.
Re:How Much (Score:4, Insightful)
That's moronic, look at Apple's financials... (Score:4, Informative)
almost all the money they make is from sales of hardware. It is their entire business model.
Re: (Score:3)
Historically, Apple sucks at realizing a profit from services.
No they don't because historically people buy Apple products for services (iTunes, iCloud, etc).
Sure those services do not make much money directly, but they help provide more reasons to buy the hardware.
Depends on the design (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the answer is you could pretty well 100% automate phone assembly and packing if you had the right design. The downside would be that repairability might be low (it's easier to dispense glue than insert screws) and the design might be more constrained. The cost of the equipment would vary according to the complexity of the final assembly and the expected volumes, but we are probably talking in the 1-10 million dollar range for an assembly system. Re-tooling is the expensive part. Ideally you want to decide on a form factor and stick to it until the tooling wore out, which is the most economical approach. But the basics of an assembly machine - pick and place, automatic screwdrivers, robot arms- would stay pretty constant.
Which is cheaper? The short answer is that in the long run automatic assembly will be cheaper again, it is just a question of when. Every Chinese riot brings that day a little closer.
That's really not accurate about automation (Score:5, Interesting)
The robotic automated control systems are typically shit, but that doesn't mean it's not doable, it just means that mechanical and electrical engineers should not write robotic control systems, they should leave it to software engineers. In other words, it's the same problem that the Diamond Viper video cards had back in the day when they let EE's write the video BIOS, instead of hiring a software engineer to do it.
I recently spent some quality time programming a Toshiba CA10-M00 controller interfaced robot for the purposes of doing testing on capacitive touch devices, such as trackpads, and the programming interface at the lowest level was, to put it bluntly, incredibly badly designed. The one saving grace was "palletizing" mode, and all that let you do was do things like fill columns in a biological sample tray while moving the pallet on which it was situated over one row at a time, and then repeating the previous instruction.
In any case, the controller was pretty terrible, very limited in capability, and only capable of controlling 4 degrees of freedom without being ganged to another controller for the next 4 degrees of freedom; even then; you'd want to install optional interface modules to use for step-signalling between the controllers, rather than ganging them, based on the limited number of steps available under the control of a single controller, and the inability to do anything remotely useful in only 1000 steps (with 4 degrees of freedom, 1000 steps was pushing rationality as it was).
As delivered, the hardware didn't actually function (had to send it back once to have a servo replaced), and when driven from other than the EEPROM, the command language is insufficiently rich to perform motion on more than a single axis at a time (which basically meant writing a program to write a program, rather than controlling it directly). Additionally, the plat was oriented incorrectly, and there were no registration marks on any of the manual adjustments, and the robot was not set up to be capable of non-2-d self interference (read: if incorrectly programmed, it could beat itself to death).
To top all this joy off, they very much expected you to use a "teaching pendant" to do a single static program, and I had to reverse engineer how to talk to the thing with a documented list of serial functions, with no documentation of order or the requirements for baseline settings.
All in all, to get a suite of repeatable test motions that could be applied to multiple devices with different form-factors required some fairly clever hackery. What I ended up with was a library of code that could be used to write a program that could program the robot. The most interesting of those are not in the public repository, but the rest of the code is here: http://git.chromium.org/gitweb/?p=chromiumos/platform/touchbot.git;a=tree [chromium.org]
The bottom line is that by using meta-programming, instead of using the default crap interface you get by applying teaching-pendant programming, it'd be pretty trivial to change over the location of a screw, or even radically alter the layout.
And just practically speaking, fetching a screw is a subroutine, putting in a screw is a subroutine, and where to put the screw in is a point in the X,Y,Z,R point table, if you wrote your code correctly in the first place, which you'd be unlikely to do if using the teaching pendant, but which was still technically possible using one. Which'd mean just rewriting the point table after issuing a region erase command to the robot controller over an RS232C link, after jamming the robot into a receptive mode with 5 other command would move the screw.
But doing the metaprogramming approach, it'd also be possible to radically alter the robot behaviour pretty trivially and be up and running on the real assembly line once you got your test line working correctly to the new model.
Which is to say, the argument that you can't as trivially recon
"Good source for news" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do any Slashdotters know of a good source for news about Chinese labor disputes?
I am sure, Foxconn, Apple, CIA, Chinese Communist Party and Dalai Lama have plenty to say about those things. Or, by "good" you mean something that is not pure spin? Then no.
Reuters Has The Story (Score:5, Informative)
Key points:
Re:Reuters Has The Story (Score:5, Funny)
Gentlemen -- welcome to Foxconn Club. The first rule of Foxconn Club is...
But I thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
But I thought Apple told us they made it all right and everything is good at Foxconn. We can believe what Apple tells us, can't we?
Sounds like old days in USA where workers faced th (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like old days in USA where workers faced the same work conditions.
They need real workers rights fast or soon the workers may just burn the factory down.
Re: (Score:3)
no, no they do not
the chineese factories rely on on near slave labor, the US makers can do nearly the same cost per unit with high levels of automation
robots do no rebel, no matter what jizztastic si-fi fan fict you read, and you dont have to stay up till 3 am to talk to some low level dumbass who speaks 3 words of english cause your getting screwed over
Re: (Score:3)
and why not? you can take a funcionally illiterate farmer into a g-code processor in a day and make them feel good about it
Re:Sounds like old days in USA where workers faced (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest problem is that at this level of assembly you have to account for variations in parts. Just try to use a robot to snap a clamshell. A human will apply the right amount of force where it is needed, and he will immediately see if something goes wrong. The vast majority of consumer electronics is not designed for easy assembly; they are designed for low cost, and as result half of the assembly is on glue, another half is snaps, and yet another half is all sorts of tiny special screws. You have to keep fragile flex connectors plugged correctly, you have to check that no wires are sticking out, you have to make sure that all 17 pieces of the puzzle are in before you put the last one on top.
Robots are very good with pick and place because these operations require minimal feedback. Once your activity starts depending on the feedback the first thing you need to develop is fingers with a good number of pressure sensors and with fine motors that can drive those fingers just like human hands do. Those robots will cost you more than the peanuts that a Chinese worker costs you today. There are only a few experimental fingers that are getting close to what is needed.
It's certainly possible to design for robotic FA&T, just as through hole PCBs were replaced with surface mounted parts. However this will impact the end product. It will be hard to make enclosures that look like solid pieces of material, with no seams or with no obvious means to open and close them. You would have to give up on technologies that only humans can do efficiently (like mating of small connectors.) You would want the assembly to consist of very few basic moves, with blind mates for all parts and with easy means to check that the mating is complete.
I don't want to sound like automation of the final assembly is impossible. I only want to mention that it is not a simple replacement of the worker with a robot.
On top of that, imagine that 1000 factory owners own all factories in the country and they need no workers. Owners still want money to pay for the raw materials, for the investments into robots, and for their wear and replacement, and for taxes, and for their own profits. Who is going to come up with the money to buy their goods if hardly anyone in the whole country is employed? The current thinking [wikipedia.org] centers around the government becoming the center of ownership of robotic factories and of distribution of their products. IMO, this only changes one boss for another boss; even worse, you can never leave the new boss.
Nerve staple them! (Score:4, Funny)
Chairman Yang would approve.
Re: (Score:3)
Sunspots have disrupted communications, you're breaking up, bzzzz bzzzz.
No first-hand accounts (Score:5, Funny)
Drat! If only there was someone on the scene with a smartphone with a really good camera and fast data connection!
Re: (Score:3)
Drat! If only there was someone on the scene with a smartphone with a really good camera and fast data connection!
Actually the first batch of video footages are taken by civilians with their smartphones, rather than news reporters coming to the scenes promptly with their flashy video camera. That is the only real trusty news source nowaday in China. Sad, very sad.
Re: (Score:3)
Drat! If only there was someone on the scene with a smartphone with a really good camera and fast data connection!
You mean like an Android Lenovo 750? Hopefully, that person had the presence of mind to steal someone else's phone before taking and posting pictures for everyone to see, because otherwise he certainly doesn't seem to be covering his tracks very well. [engadget.com]
Reports differ (Score:5, Insightful)
The guys at wehateapple.com are saying it's the worst thing in history and that Apple will finally get what's coming to them for all teh evils. But the guys at appleisgreat.com are saying it's no big deal and stuff like this happens all the time.
Meanwhile, the guys at mindyourownbusiness.com don't have a report about it at all, but they do have some good reports that seem relevant to my own life. At mindsomeoneelsesbusiness.com, they're extremely interested in whether African tribes that make their own beer are at a greater risk for gout from too much yeast and they think it's the fault of the US government for some reason.
At newsfornerds.com, they're just trolling for clicks, so they put up a story with no information to get Apple haters and Apple fanboys sniping at each other. Later, they'll be posting stories about evolution, Mitt Romney's failure to announce any female cabinet members, an ask newsfornerds.com question about whether Dragon Age 3 will be more heterosexual-friendly than Dragon Age 2, and a statement from RMS about how the government should stop paying school teachers because they should be sharing their knowledge for free.
Re:Reports differ (Score:4, Funny)
Wouldn't anything of value be off topic?
The truth is (Score:5, Interesting)
From the local news "" Translation: Foxconn security started the fight, which triggered riots in Shandong and Henan.
How could this become "a fight among workers" in international news I wondered.
The only thing international news coverage is correctly accounted for is that the root cause is still a mystery, but we would imagine it should be more along the line of suppression under high working pressure.
Re: (Score:3)
"a fight among workers from different production lines,"
Sadly, this fight was just the latest round in the war between Apple and Google. Production line 1 were the Foxconn workers building the iPhone 5, while production line 2 make Android phones for Motorola Mobility. Conflict was inevitable.
If the Chinese aren't careful... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Chinese aren't careful, they're going to have a communist revolution on their hands.
Sorry, I might have trotted that one out before; but it has fit so perfectly the past decade or so.
They're fighting for better hours (Score:3)
Re:Qualcomm demand? (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, it's Taiwan guys. They're still relatively democratic, co the news sources are probably ok.
(-1: Clueless). Foxconn may be headquartered in Taiwan, but the Taiyuan plant is in the province of Shanxi, in Mainland China.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course CNN has no news about it, neither Britney Spears nor the likelihood of Hell existing [cnn.com] were involved.
Re:Android phones are made out of hemp in the USA (Score:5, Funny)
No, not hemp; it's rainbows shat out by unicorns and then sun-dried.
Re:what will happen to rioting workers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Second riot, you have contact with outside NGO, CIA, MI6.... the questions start and never stop.
Re:Such a caring company (Score:5, Informative)
Acer Inc. (Taiwan)[40]
Amazon.com (United States)[7]
Apple Inc. (United States)[41]
Cisco (United States)[42]
Dell (United States)[43]
Hewlett-Packard (United States)[44]
Intel (United States)[45]
Microsoft (United States)[9]
Motorola Mobility (United States)[43]
Nintendo (Japan)[46]
Nokia (Finland)[41]
Sony (Japan)[8]
Toshiba (Japan) [47]
Vizio (United States)[48]
You don't care about these workers, you are only bothered with your Apple hate so that you even ignore the facts. Only on slashdot this can be modded up. Sickening !
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Major customers of Foxconn currently include:
You don't care about these workers, you are only bothered with your Apple hate so that you even ignore the facts. Only on slashdot this can be modded up. Sickening !
What is sickening!! you have posted a list of companies that use these workers without bothering with a good list like Samsung have manufacturing plants in America, and Goggle famously left China for ethical reasons and introduced a new Nexus product made in America. I think its time you stopped queuing for the iPhone 5 and wend and bought a Samsung Galaxy III.
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/5/3293674/china-labor-watch-samsung-labor-abuse-underage-employment [theverge.com]
So how is that Nexus III going for you ?
You really claim that these days you can buy stuff that doesn't has one or mulitple components not manufactered in China ?
Re: (Score:3)
You really claim that these days you can buy stuff that doesn't has one or mulitple components not manufactered in China ?
Absolutely not!! Do I buy from the companies that are producing hardware in companies where worker rights are protected like America like Intel; Samsung and companies trying to move manufacturing to countries protected by workers rights like Google with the Nexus Q. Do I Boycott companies like Apple that charge a premium and laugh at the prospect of producing hardware in places where workers rights are protected...to the president no less. Its not complicated to be an ethical consumer...give money to compan
Re: (Score:4, Insightful)
Guards are "workers" too by many definitions. A fight among workers can easily be spin from "clash between guards and assembly workers."
Lots of spin going on here. That a simple fight can turn into a riot? With cars turned over? Doubting it. Most such fights are simply watched by people as a form of entertainment. But when the dispute is something close to the observers' hearts (such as working conditions and abuses) others joining in and working together is natural.