Chinese Students Say They Are Being Forced To Build Your Next iPhone 481
pigrabbitbear writes "Now that Apple is putting the finishing touches on the most anticipated smartphone in history, Chinese students are again being pressed into service on the factory line inside the largest single internship program in the world. This according to two separate stories in the Chinese press. A report today in the Shanghai Daily says that hundreds of students in the city of Huai'an were forced to help fulfill iPhone 5 orders starting last Thursday. Classes in town had allegedly been interrupted as a result, since the two-month long internships would fulfill the students' need to 'experience working conditions.'"
Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Interesting)
...so it evens out in college.
//never actually worked in the food service industry
///maybe a small regret in my life
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Funny)
...so it evens out in college.
//never actually worked in the food service industry ///maybe a small regret in my life
Sure, but 'Internship' doesn't necessarily mean they get pay, they just get credit. In college I was paid for my programming efforts (also got to use a little of it for credit :)
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
And those that are aware of this should not purchase an iPhone.
I am proud to not own an iPhone. I am proud in knowing that the % of profits from my phone are minimal and did not come from slave labor.
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
And those that are aware of this should not purchase an iPhone.
I am proud to not own an iPhone. I am proud in knowing that the % of profits from my phone are minimal and did not come from slave labor.
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
Hear hear. Question: where do you find a phone that is made in the USA? AIUI, pretty much any smartphone you want to buy is made in China, in large part.
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I don't think this has existed in recent history - I'd imagine old Motorolas were made here, though. Anyone know?
My obsolete Nokia is made in Finland, and they had quite a bit of manufacturing capacity in Finland, Germany, and... Hungary? (until recently, at least. The slogging they've been getting doesn't give them the luxury of that anymore, I suppose, and they've been shutting down facilities). Their cheap models have been made in Korea and more recently China for some time, though.
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I don't think this has existed in recent history - I'd imagine old Motorolas were made here, though. Anyone know?
My obsolete Nokia is made in Finland, and they had quite a bit of manufacturing capacity in Finland, Germany, and... Hungary? (until recently, at least. The slogging they've been getting doesn't give them the luxury of that anymore, I suppose, and they've been shutting down facilities). Their cheap models have been made in Korea and more recently China for some time, though.
Yup. This is the state of Nokia's Finland plant [www.hs.fi] these days...
Anyway, wouldn't stuff made in South Korea be the best option right now? In terms of fair play and pay? It's a highly-developed country.
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Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
Bearing in mind the profit margin on iProducts, Apple could break the cycle and move manufacturing to the West.
Alternatively, Apple could charge extra for moving the manufacturing. I'm sure the feel-good factor would sit well with the Apple fanbase even if they all had to pay an extra $20. The kudos to Appl;e for such a move would be immense.
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"All "free trade" has done is left us an indebted nation,"
We are the third largest manufacturing nation in the world. Expecting to dominate "forever" is literally not sane. Debt was a bad choice, but most of that isn't due to the trade balance.
"with business district filled with abandoned factories,"
Those factories are obsolete and many of their jobs no longer exist. It's cheaper to abandon expendable buildings and build new. Land is abundant in the US. (Too bad we aren't quicker to demolish old structures,
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If a phone is made in the USA today, it will be mostly built by robots with only a few humans involved in the process.
Any labor intensive parts that couldn't be done by a robot, will be done over seas.
Otherwise the phones would be 100 to 300 dollars more expensive.
im sorry to tell you this, but your phone (Score:4, Insightful)
probably comes from the same factory as the iphone, or if not, then the factory down the street, and since nobody is putting pressure on Samsung to 'clean up its supply chain' (since its in Korea after all) then Samsung does not hire inspectors to go harass factory managers to clean up their act.
Re:im sorry to tell you this, but your phone (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry to tell you this but you are either lying or ignorant to the fact that Samsung does put pressure [theregister.co.uk] on their suppliers to clean up their act.
Also if you care to see Samsung's statements you can see them here [samsungtomorrow.com]
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Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
I LOVE my American made Toyota. My neighbor's Canadian/Mexican made Chevy is a piece of crap.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't you argue that GM cars are the most American cars of all, given that they are, you know, owned by America?
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Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
...Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
Remember when greed wasn't the cornerstone of the American Dream? Yeah, you would need to bring that back FIRST.
(Unless you really wanted to pay $3000 for an American-made iPhone...)
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Before the Indians were met.
There, fixed that for you.
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Bullshit. Every other smartphone is made in the same way, in the same type of factories in China. It's just that because Apple is so visible we hear stories about the iPhone etc, but most other electronic devices are produced under the same conditions.
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That's entirely false. I can't see assembly in the US costing more than a $50 premium (I seem to recall a story here stating that amount, or less, as well).
However, if all the components were made state-side, those small premiums would add up somewhat more. Still nowhere near 3x cost though.
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So at first, yes, you probably would be paying 3x as much. Later, once it's gotten down to a reasonable margin and you're not paying off the factories, they may get it down to a mere 50% premium, if I add up the cost of each of those little pre
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
The minute "people" are willing to spend $1500 on a phone that currently costs $550, you'll see iPhones built right here in the good ol' USA. You can be the first. What's that? Not interested? Oh, sorry, never mind then, hypocrite.
Bullshit. There was a story on Slashdot several months back that included a breakdown of the costs involved in the iPhone. Manufacturing labor is only around 3%. Their workers are paid $350 a month. Paying an American worker a decent wage (say around $42k per year) would cost ten times that, for a 27% increase in the price of the phones. But making them in the US means you don't have to pay as much on shipping. I don't have numbers on hand for how much that costs, but let's ballpark it at 2% of the total phone's cost. That means that you're looking at at most a 25% price hike to build those phones in the US. Not the 200% increase that you pulled out of your ass.
Now, I'm not saying those jobs necessarily should come to the US. There's nothing that makes Americans more entitled to work than Chinese people. But whoever builds the phones should be getting a good wage. Treating people anywhere in the world as near-slave labor just so we can save $150 on our phones every two years is simply disgraceful.
It's akin to Papa John complaining that giving his workers healthcare would make the pizzas cost an extra quarter. Are we as a society really so greedy that we think that's a bad deal?
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Insightful)
$350 a month in China isn't a particularly bad wage, its certainly not slave labor so maybe you could tone down the overblown rhetoric. Their cost of living is dramatically lower than the U.S. $350/month also dramatically beats what they can make trying to eek out a living as a farmer which is why large numbers of young people willingly flee rural China for those jobs.
If recent rumours out of Foxconn are true they are probably going to transfer most of the menial assembly line jobs to robots at which point there wont be any jobs at all for anyone, then what will all the Apple haters whine about.
All things considered, whining about Apple building their stuff in China is pointless and misguided. Nearly every western coporation moved their jobs and capital equipment to China. Seeking out cheap labor is what companies in a Capitalist system inherently do. It will reach its ultimate fulfillment when computers and robots are doing everything so there are no more jobs. Google's self driving cars are poised to wipe out long haul truckers, taxi drivers, auto insurance agents, highway patrolmen, and will significantly reduce the number of emergency responders, since car wrecks must be half their business.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Interesting)
A global economy means that all wages experience downward pressure towards the lowest common denominator. Either we pay the Chinese more, or we accept Chinese wages in the US. I know which approach I prefer.
As to robots, you're absolutely right. Which is why we need to transition away from such rigid capitalism as soon as possible. By the end of the 21st century, there's going to be a lot less work for humans to do. That can either be a good thing, with people having more time to enjoy life, or a terrible thing, where we punish those not lucky enough to be born into a robot-factory-owning family.
And for what it's worth, I don't bear any particular ill will towards Apple over this. By all accounts, they hold their contractors to higher standards than most. They just happen to be the most visible, so they end up serving as the face of the whole industry.
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I REALLY don't think returning to an age of unlimited and unregulated industrial pollution is the solution here...I'm quite happy to NOT be living next to a toxic chemical dump, thanks.
The problem isn't regulation, it's globalization. China doesn't have much of these regulations yet, which is why we're losing a lot of business to them -- but they're destroying their nation in the process. It's just not sustainable. Eventually they'll realize that and things will start to balance out a bit more, but the prob
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Informative)
In my experience, if Foxconn is supplying them with free lodging and giving them subsidized food, $350/mo is roughly equivalent to $29,000 a year in America. Still pretty bad for having 60 hour work-weeks, but not outrageous for the country in question. Given that alot of the workers are probably coming from the countryside, i'd say most of them see it as an upgrade to their lifestyle as soon as they leave the corp and go back to their hometown with a years worth of decent wages saved up, would probably help them started a business or go to school.
My basis for this statement: Living in China for 5 years, and 2 trips back within the last 4.
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Yes. We are that greedy, which is why we are having this discussion in the first place.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember when people were proud to own USA items? Perhaps it is time to bring that back.
The minute "people" are willing to spend $1500 on a phone that currently costs $550, you'll see iPhones built right here in the good ol' USA. You can be the first. What's that? Not interested? Oh, sorry, never mind then, hypocrite.
And Apple(or any other hypothetical vendor) wouldn't just pocket the extra grand and continue production by the means that allowed them to hit the $500 price point why exactly?
My wife did this (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, but 'Internship' doesn't necessarily mean they get pay, they just get credit.
My wife is Chinese and during college all students do an internship where they work on a factory floor, or on a farm, or do a stint in the military. She worked in a car factory in Tianjin, installing door handles. She was paid the same as the factory workers, which was not much in those days, but enough to live on.
Re:Well, I was forced to serve them hamburgers (Score:5, Informative)
"Forced" doesn't mean "I had to do it because I needed the money" in China. There, as elsewhere in the Communist world, there is this thing called "brigadier movement", where students (highschool and university) and sometimes older people "volunteer" to help some sector of the economy, usually for free (awful) food and no pay.
When I was a kid, we used to "help" agriculture most often, at it was the most underpopulated sector. The "help" would usually take place around the start of the school year, during the time of the harvest, but also during the summer vacation.
From the description of the article I think this is the same thing -- the authorities rounding up people to "help" the industry.
The only difference is that when I was doing it, we were doing it for the "country". Now it is for Foxconn.
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The only difference is that when I was doing it, we were doing it for the "country". Now it is for Foxconn.
There is a difference?
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"Forced" doesn't mean "I had to do it because I needed the money" in China.
From the description of the article I think this is the same thing -- the authorities rounding up people to "help" the industry.
The only difference is that when I was doing it, we were doing it for the "country". Now it is for Foxconn.
Well apparently the international attention this story is receiving has attracted the attention of Apple and the Chinese Government.
Its not clear who acted first, but it appears the Government has ordered an end to the practice [shanghaidaily.com] of using students to to fulfil industrial orders.
According to the statement, the Huai'an government has ordered higher education institutions to strictly follow the policies and correct the violations. But students who volunteered to do internship in the factory could stay, China National Radio reported yesterday.
So now only [cough] "Volunteers" are used for this purpose.
I'm sure you meant to say that when you were a kid you were offered the opportunity to "Volunteer" in the fields, right?
I'm sure your relatives still living in the area "Volunt
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"Forced" doesn't mean "I had to do it because I needed the money" in China.
Correct. In China it means "I had to do it to get college credit."
Is it really so wrong to require students to get some practical experience?
The most anticipated smartphone, huh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The most anticipated smartphone, huh (Score:5, Funny)
Based on Pew Research studies and calibrated anticipation meters around the world.
What is the global SI-standard for anticipation you say? Well, it's measured in Daikatanas...
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What is the global SI-standard for anticipation you say? Well, it's measured in Daikatanas...
Ah, I was wondering what John Romero was up to these days.
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Thatls LePew!
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Winner.
Is disappointment measured in Masseffects? Actually, there's a lot of units contending for that position. :(
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Based on which measurement?
Quite. Quite.
I'm more excited by the Kindle Fire HD than I am by any phone from Apple. Phones are for me bugging other people, not for them bugging me.
Wait for the other shoe to drop ... (Score:5, Interesting)
China doesn't have an independent press... (Score:5, Interesting)
China doesn't have an adversarial and independent press (though God knows it could be argued the US doesn't have one anymore either). When things like this happen, the best you're going to get are strangled, scattered reports in fitful sporadic bursts, as happened in our own (US) revolution.
Responsible journalism would involve a reporter going out to investigate the reports and interview the people on the scene. The government won't allow it. So now you're in a similar situation where the police get a call about a wife beater. They go to the accused man's house and find there's blood on his sleeveless t-shirt, they can hear sobbing inside, but he won't let them in the door. Suddenly you have to take those few scattered reports a lot more seriously.
Various students are reporting they've been pressed into service by a dictatorial government. The dictatorial government in question isn't allowing anyone to investigate their claims. The government's behavior in and of itself tends to corroborate the students' reports, especially given the previous history of the factory in question.
So, what...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not mine! (Score:2)
They're not building my next iPhone!
...a worker's paradise... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously here, when will the world wise up to the fact that "cheap cinese labor" has costs that don't tabulate out cleanly on expense sheets and quarterly reports?
Is getting your technology for fractions of a cent per transistor worth.... this?
Do the affluent of today not know that this kind of despotism breeds civil unrest, government oppression, and the degredation of what it means to be a human being?
Do they even care?
A worker's paradise indeed. Does anyone know of any electronics makers who don't abuse another country's willingness to throw its own people under the bus for money?
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2. Yes
3. Yes
4. No
5. Not any profitable ones.
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about the time the Chinese labor wises up... but as long as they are ok to be exploited.. who am i to argue.
now don't bother me as i go to vote for one of two parties (not candidates)
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See, the thing is, willingness to throw its own people under the bus for money is part of the process of how a country rises from an undeveloped to an industrialized nation. If you're a dirt-poor backwater country, you don't have much you can offer to a business. Your infrastructure sucks, your average level of education is sub-par, transportation is non-existent, and t
Someone has to assemble them... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have never bought a cell phone in my life. Do you really think my inaction will make a difference?
(all my cell phones have been gifts or company phones)
Good (Score:2)
The slaves of Terra are being summoned again to fulfill the species needs.
Apple Fall Harvest Always Came Before School (Score:3)
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: "At the time it was evident that Edina was still a farming town, since school vacations coincided with spring planting and fall harvesting so the children could help in the fields."
Could block imports of iPhones into the US (Score:5, Interesting)
19 USC 1307 [cornell.edu]:
All goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country by convict labor or/and forced labor or/and indentured labor under penal sanctions shall not be entitled to entry at any of the ports of the United States, and the importation thereof is hereby prohibited, and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed to prescribe such regulations as may be necessary for the enforcement of this provision. ...
'Forced labor', as herein used, shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for its nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily. For purposes of this section, the term "forced labor or/and indentured labor" includes forced or indentured child labor.
Anyone now has the right to file a complaint that could result in all iPhone 5 units incoming to the US be impounded at U.S. customs. This includes competitors.
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Good luck with that. You must be from that parallel universe where laws are made out of words that have meanings. I'll bet marihuana is legal over there too and alcohol illegal, since alcohol fits the bill for a Schedule I substance, while marihuana misses on most if not all criteria.
Besides, who cares about heathen yellow people anyway? If they were half as virtuous as us, they'd stage a rebellion and overthrow the communist government and welcome God and Man Jesus and everything would be magically m
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Which since penal sanctions were not involved does not apply. At least given the syntax of the statute.
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Isn't convict labor common inside the US?
Re:Could block imports of iPhones into the US (Score:5)
It is an internship meaning it is completely voluntary.
Quite right, Tovarishch -- If bad things just happen to refuseniks afterwards, it is entirely coincidental. But that's no problem, because we are all happy volunteers!
Re:Could block imports of iPhones into the US (Score:5, Insightful)
It is absolutely nothing similar to what you're describing. Quoting someone else that addresses your naive point well (they actually read the article! imagine that):
Students were pulled from their classes, forced to work 12-hour shifts, and punished if they protested or tried to leave. None of this was voluntary, and all of it highly illegal even by Chinese law. The students were paid a very nominal amount, but were billed for room and board which clawed that money right back to the factory, meaning this is a "Sixteen Tons" situation where the students didn't actually get paid.
As for the "work experience," it consisted of snapping parts together and filling boxes. The students were studying Law and English. The factory work had no educational value of any kind, not are any of the students getting the references or connections customarily associated with internships.
Are you getting this yet? The students were grabbed from school, shipped to the factory and made to work 12-hour shifts. No one had agreed to any of this. Anyone who talked back or tried to leave was punished.
The nicest label you can slap on this is "impressment," which is just a fancy way of saying slavery. So let me get this straight. A national healthcare plan is "enslaving doctors," but grabbing kids out of class and forcing them to work 12-hour shifts without pay is "valuable work experience?"
It's only voluntary in the sense, "You can leave but we won't be letting you graduate."
That is not voluntary.
in the usa we have the same thing it's much better (Score:2)
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-06-26/news/ct-met-new-harper-college-jobs-program-20120627_1_manufacturing-summit-harper-college-production-workers [chicagotribune.com]
That is a community college offering a trades based learning plan with real PAID work as part of class plan.
this Chinese thing seems like we don't care what your field is go work in this factory doing a line job with no learning plan tied to the work.
Coming soon to a factory near you. (Score:3)
Unpaid internships are the new black (market labor).
One political party wants to repeal minimum wage laws, child labor laws, and the entire category "labor laws".
Take a good look at what happens when you have a government that wants to "unleash business". And polish that resume, or you might not get that unpaid internship (I wonder if they give them free pizza).
Who's calling the shots in China? Hu Jintao or Apple?
In related news, Mitt Romney sees cold fusion [boingboing.net] as the future of "basic science", so clearly things are looking up here in the 'States.
Good night, God bless you, and God bless America.
Sounds like a good idea (Score:2)
Too bad governments over here don't force students in useless arts, latin, and philosophy degrees to do the same.
Brings back memories (Score:2)
Where's the iScoop then? (Score:2)
If there's any truth to the news, then surely one of those "disgruntled" students could be given an incentive to spill the beans on the specs or the look of the new iPhone? Even an actual photo would be possible. I'm sure there are tech "news" orgs out there willing to shell a few grand for even a low-res photo taken via a spy cam that can easily be tucked into the workers' underwear or body cavity. This can be foiled of course if Foxconn security does a strip/cavity search of each worker entering the facto
Well, in Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Interesting)
... we, university students (personal experience), but also, I've heard more seniour people in "intellectual" line of employment were forced in the Fall to go help our collectivized farmers pick up potatoes and do some other harvest-related work. (Kartoshka! ;-) )...
I do not know if, given my current line work, I would enjoy assembling high-tech stuff more than that (and would definitely learn more from it), but, overall, I, personally, did not mind at all, it was an excuse to live outside the control of our parents (for those of us who did not go to school in another city/lived in dorm which was less common than in this country), get as drunk as our farmer hosts, shmooze with girls, etc. ;-) As to actual work -- my buddies and myself self-organized to proclaim that we are going to do actual "hard" work, loading bags of potato on trucks, while the rest do "easy" part, pick and load the bags... Of course it would take much more actual time to fill a bag than to throw it into the truck, the rest we spent hanging out and baking potatoes!
Somehow I think that efficiency necessary to assemble iPhones would preclude those Chinese kids to have any good times though, but do not think that it was/is not common in "Communist" countries.
(And, no, we did not get paid, unless you could a bag of potatos which you might or might not sneak back home at the end).
Paul B.
This just in... (Score:3)
iPhone purchasers will be ok with it.
Confirmation (Score:4, Informative)
This is even showing up in newspapers in China [shanghaidaily.com] and on China National Radio, which is state-controlled. The state-controlled media point out that Foxconn is run from Taiwan. The city government of Huai has stepped in and send some of the students back to school.
Somebody should raise enough hell to have IPhone 5 shipments seized at US Customs while this issue is resolved. Customs can hold them up to 3 months for investigation.
That's a shame... (Score:3)
... they should petition their government about that.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about students applying to foxconn for a part time job. It's about the univeristy they work for ordering students who had no previous relations to foxconn to go work there and suspending classes as a result.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Insightful)
China isn't really like north america or europe in this regard. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire government in the area (district or even prefecture) is actually just an extension of foxconn (legally, officially), and if you're at their school you can be told to work at their factory, they pay for it after all. You can't take one of their products into their town, you can't set up a vegetable stall without their permission and in their town etc. This isn't some mom and pop little GM assembly plant with 6000 employees. This is a small factory with only 40 000 workers that they need to expand (http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/21/foxconn-building-new-production-line-for-apple-products/ )
Conceptually it's much like factory towns elsewhere, with varying degrees of official backing, and institutionalizing who actually runs the show.
There is also, in china at least, some measure of communist collective effort and coercion still. This has to be done, so we all pitch in to do it, because it's for the good of the country, or else. And to some degree they're right - without a strong collective effort they wouldn't be where they are. Of course if they cared about their workers they'd be paying a lot more than 250 dollars a month, but lets not go crazy here, you need to keep costs down to stay competitive.
The government can always conscript you and and then send you to work digging trenches, fighting wars or building schools if they want. Normally rich countries don't resort to that in all but the most extreme circumstances, but for china a million iphones probably brings in 10 or 15 million dollars (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/01/31/how-much-of-the-iphone-is-made-in-china/). That's a lot of money, especially since, if you look at the first link I had, they're talking about only a 56 million dollar factory. There is a strategic interest in doing whatever it takes to meet that demand rather than risk letting somewhere else pick up the sales - and that's only direct wages for the phone assembly, there's all of the components manufactured in china as well - and they want to be seen as doing whatever it takes to keep it that way. China is taking 'being accommodating to business' as far as you can take it without outright allowing slavery - and that is deliberate.
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I wouldn't be surprised if the entire government in the area (district or even prefecture) is actually just an extension of foxconn (legally, officially)
It's a communist regime, no matter how capitalistic they might seem, it's still the same, meaning, your statement is actually backwards, foxconn and every other chinese company is in fact an extension of the government. This isn't an assumption, but fact.
In the East European countries, under the communist rule, this happened all the time, and at a much grander scale. You finished high-school or whatever, you were assigned a job. If they needed a mechanic, then you were a mechanic, if they needed someone to
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Isn't it more of a capitalist dictatorship? With a communist system, you usually had state-set goals for the economy.
They decided that the country needed X pieces of Y, then made the (state owned) companies produce it. With China, it's the other way around. The companies decide what they can market, then the government makes the people work for the companies. It's actually just highly evolved capitalism. The Chinese managed to skip the period in which the workers think they are free, and go straight to the
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You cannot ascribe collective motivation to individuals
Actually, you can. Different cultures approach shared sacrifice very differently. The japanese particularly are much much more about 'your role in society' than 'how you benefit from society' the way we are in north america. Quebec (the french speaking part of canada) is actually very collective relatively to the rest of north america because they view themselves, or at least the french within quebec, view themselves as this pocket of french culture resisting english encroachment. That has worked very w
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean RIM? BioWare? Bombardier? ATI?
Without a doubt, the oil industry has been a disaster for canada. We went from being a manufacturing economy producing almost 50% more cars per capita than the US, to a place where making cars is becoming too expensive.
It's economy is still based on oil and logging.
I realize the US perception of canada is out of date, but that's 100 years out of date. As I say though, oil causing us a lot of grief, it's good for newfoundland because there aren't a lot of them, but it's driving up the dollar.
It is silly to say that Canada is doing better than the USA when Canada is essentially completely dependent on it's proximity to the USA:
No, we aren't dependent. We're close, that means it's convenient to buy and sell from the US. We also recognize that this plan isn't working out, and it's time to move on. That's why we're building east west oil pipelines for example. If we weren't close to the US we'd be doing the same thing as Australia, who isn't near anyone, and trading with anyone.
even though Canada has vastly greater natural resources per capita than the USA.
In places no one lives. Not really a fair comparison.
In global rankings such as HDI we are about the same
On healthcare, wealth distribution we're doing better. On HDI we are in a statistical tie. If you are going to be in the wealthiest 1% so to speak you want to be in the US. If you want to be anyone else, you're better off in canada. By a long shot.
I may not like our conservatives, but we don't have a political party that has institutionalized living in a fantasy land the like the republicans, we've actually had healthcare for years. We no longer have groups of people fighting over basic issues, like access to abortion, or the right to vote, because we're all in this together, and we've moved on from that nonsense. We don't throw huge numbers of people in jail because we actually make decisions based on evidence, not based on some misguided notion of justice.
Money isn't everything, but even in that we're doing better - because we had more regulation, and more socialism than the US in 2008.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Interesting)
What sort of university is that?!
A university in a totalitarian country? E.g., it was traditional in the countries of the Eastern Bloc for (state-owned) schools to send pupils to do "voluntary work" for the (state-owned and fairly inefficient) agriculture. Technically, nobody forced the students to do that, but you know...the universities could accommodate only so many students, they had to pick...see where the whole thing is going?
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I see, most of the drones here do not.
As more and more of USA industry is nationalized this is exactly where we are heading.
WELCOME TO THE LAND OF THE SOVIETS WHERE LABOR IS FREE
Since Obama's inauguration we've seen a huge drop in public sector employment and an increase in private sector employment. In other words, industry is less and less nationalized on our current trajectory.
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You are not counting GM?
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Sadly, the Obama Administration does not considering Game Mastering in their employment statistics.
Purposely obtusely yours,
dj
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That should be: "Sadly, the Obama does not consider Game Mastering in their employment statistics."... it started out as "is not considering", and I messed up the editing.
Regards,
dj
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What sort of university is that?!
Hard Knocks U.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Informative)
Did you read TFA? "A student [...] said 200 students from her school had been driven to the factory. [...] Several other students from at least five colleges backed up what she said, saying they were being forced to work for 12 hours a day. [...] Foxconn was badly in need of 10,000 workers but students were looking forward to returning to classrooms to continue their academic studies which had been seriously disrupted." How is this a routine event?
why students for a job that does not need college (Score:3)
why students for a job that does not need college and make it in to a internship that is no pay / way under min wage.
also 6 days a week a 12 hours a day is a full time job with overtime and not a part time internship.
This a intern abuse at it's extreme.
Now if the school is really looking out for the students they should makeing it so that the intern are learning about there field and are not just being used as full time extra hands.
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Well this factory is new, but this might be routine for china, and if it happens once every 2 or 3 years then it happens on whatever cycle, it's only going to hit you once or twice in your academic career, if it hits you at all.
Re:It's an internship. (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost all of us have done it. I'm certainly no fan of Apple but this appears to be making something out of a routine event.
You call a government program to meet manufacturing quotas for the purpose of moving large amounts of money from the US to China by mandating the participation of students on factory assembly lines a "routine event"? No, cpu6502, that is not at all something that "almost all" of us have done.
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Would rather serve 2 months in a factory, learning valuable work skills (internship), then spend 1-2 years in the military as is the case in almost all European democracies. Purely from an unbiased view, the European mandate looks worse.
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"Almost all"? Time to live in the now! Because it looks like you're from the 80's or somethin'. A majority of European countries have professional armies today.
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Almost all of us have done it. I'm certainly no fan of Apple but this appears to be making something out of a routine event.
The CCP is more than happy to ensure Apple has an ample supply of phones, too, meaning Apple should find great happiness and luck with Chinese workers!
Somehow I didn't feel I was compeled by the government to work for my employers while I was in college ... how times change!
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You posted something that excuses Apple's behavior by not painting the story as something evil that Apple is doing. I'm surprised all you got was a -1 mod.
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Oh cool, the Astronaut iPhone!
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Actually no other phone/tablet has so many preorders and so much rush to get it on the day it becomes available. So yeah there is no sudden spike for other companies, and they dont need to bring in temporary students to fill the rush.
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the 4th generation was called the 4
And the fifth generation was called 4s... um... hmmm... Looks like there is no precedent for any scheme at the moment.
All this hand wringing over the understood (by sane people) *placeholder* name of iPhone 5 is just geek OCD piffle.
Or... you could look at the iPhone 4 as Apple shifting the digit to a version number. The 4s was an update to the 4. So the next phone could very well be called the 5. Or not. They can do whatever the hell they want. There's no rules or laws for product names. Witness Windows ch
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But then again, if work experience is so valuable, maybe we should shut down Harvard and MIT for a week each semester so the students can get some highly valuable work experience at a world class establishment like McDonalds or Walmart. What do you think?
Read the article... (Score:5, Interesting)
Students were pulled from their classes, forced to work 12-hour shifts, and punished if they protested or tried to leave. None of this was voluntary, and all of it highly illegal even by Chinese law. The students were paid a very nominal amount, but were billed for room and board which clawed that money right back to the factory, meaning this is a "Sixteen Tons" situation where the students didn't actually get paid.
As for the "work experience," it consisted of snapping parts together and filling boxes. The students were studying Law and English. The factory work had no educational value of any kind, not are any of the students getting the references or connections customarily associated with internships.
Are you getting this yet? The students were grabbed from school, shipped to the factory and made to work 12-hour shifts. No one had agreed to any of this. Anyone who talked back or tried to leave was punished.
The nicest label you can slap on this is "impressment," which is just a fancy way of saying slavery. So let me get this straight. A national healthcare plan is "enslaving doctors," but grabbing kids out of class and forcing them to work 12-hour shifts without pay is "valuable work experience?"
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