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.
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: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:Who cares? (Score:0, Informative)
But my Raspberry Pi was assembled in the UK and it is clearly better than a retina MBP so hah!
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.
Reuters Has The Story (Score:5, Informative)
Key points:
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: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:Who cares? (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: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:Who cares? (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: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.
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: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:Labor disputes (Score:2, Informative)
This is China. There won't be any news.
Actually, since FoxConn is a Taiwanese company, rather than a PRC company, I think you'll find that many of the media controls are relaxed. Probably the only reason we've heard as much as we have already
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: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:Srsly? (Score:2, Informative)
From the Washington Post:
"The fight, the cause of which was under investigation, erupted Sunday night at a privately managed dormitory near a Foxconn Technology Group factory in the northern city of Taiyuan"
"The violence did not appear to be work-related"
The anti-Apple hysteria on /. has gone nuclear, and now any disturbance on the planet is attributed to one company. Crazy.
Re:Labor disputes (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe, but the party that runs China today is the same party that was founded by Mao Zedong. It's very different from Russia, where the CPSU was ousted.
Whether the US is a republic or not is totally off-topic & irrelevant to this discussion.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)