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Apple-Supplier Foxconn To Announce New Factory in Wisconsin in Much-needed Win For Trump and Scott Walker (washingtonpost.com) 131

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
An anonymous reader shares a Washington Post report: Foxconn, one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers, will unveil plans Wednesday evening to build a new factory in southeastern Wisconsin (alternative source), delivering a much-needed win for President Trump and Gov. Scott Walker, according to four officials with knowledge of the announcement. The facility will make flat-screen displays and will be located in Southeast Wisconsin within House Speaker Paul Ryan's congressional district. It is not clear how many jobs would be created. Shortly after Trump was elected, Foxconn's chairman Terry Gou said his company would invest at least $7 billion in the United States and create between 30,000 and 50,000 jobs. If it follows through with that commitment, Foxconn would become a major employer on par with Chrysler. In April, Gou spent more than two hours at the White House.
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Apple-Supplier Foxconn To Announce New Factory in Wisconsin in Much-needed Win For Trump and Scott Walker More

Apple-Supplier Foxconn To Announce New Factory in Wisconsin in Much-needed Win For Trump and Scott Walker

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  • sniff, sniff (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm smelling... TAXBREAKS!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by halivar ( 535827 )

      Of course. Why would you not prefer 5 percent of something over 30 percent of nothing? Michigan needs this, and not even just for the jobs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Errr...Scott Walker is gov. of Wisconsin. It isn't clear he knows where Michigan is anyhow.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rbrander ( 73222 )

        I'd agree if companies coming in brought only money and no costs. Alas, companies need roads and police and courts and stuff, like any other economic actor. If they don't pay for themselves, it's just asking taxpayers to subsidize the jobs. The new employees DO benefit, but at the expense of their neighbours.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by halivar ( 535827 )

          The state needs to pay for those roads, police, and courts regardless of whether FoxConn is there, or not. Fire departments, too. The state needs the grow the tax base, not just the tax percentage. There's a delicate balance. (Source: SimCity on a Mac LC II in 1990)

    • I'm smelling... TAXBREAKS!

      Well...Duh!!!

      That is one of the most powerful tools any state/community pulls out of the quiver any time they try to entice a large company to their area.

      I'm sure it happened here, but it's not like it is scandalous or different than business as usual for anything of this nature in the past, present or future.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        Sure, 1 to 3 billion by some reports in incentives. Let's not forget when Foxconn made a similar announcement regarding Pennsylvania in 2013 that it completely failed to follow through on. Also look at their dealings with Indonesia, India, Vietnam and Brazil. It's a nice PR bump for those involved but I'm not believing shit till ground is broken.

    • I'm smelling... TAXBREAKS!

      . . . and a round of Green Cards for Terry Gou's family, friends, associates, etc.

      Hey, but it's like a good old Las Vegas Casino . . . if a high roller drops a lot of money there, if he wants to burn down the casino, they will give him a match.

    • Money not going into the hands of beltway people ... who by the way live in the place with the highest number of millionaires in the US.

  • Workers of the World (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Unless they fly in there own laborers, having to deal with American labor is going to be hilarious to them.

    "You want 8 hour work days AND 15 minute breaks? We're out"

    • Re:Workers of the World (Score:4, Insightful)

      by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @12:38PM (#54884063)

      Unless they fly in there own laborers, having to deal with American labor is going to be hilarious to them.

      "You want 8 hour work days AND 15 minute breaks? We're out"

      I'd fire any robot that demanded such nonsense also. The only way this is going to be cost effective is if the vast majority of jobs aren't coming back and a handful of engineers and robot techs do the work of tens of thousands of assembly workers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mrmagos ( 783752 )
      I'm wondering how much of the factory will be automated. That really cuts down on the labor cost.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That's not how Foxconn operates. Try 12-16 hour shifts and maybe a break for food. Also, they'll probably wake you up when you're sleeping in the company dorms to do another 12 hour shift.

      Come to Foxconn for the job, stay at Foxconn because of the netting and barb-wire fence.

  • $7 billion factory... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @12:33PM (#54883989)
    And in more hushed news, Apple gets a $14 billion tax break to repatriate $50 billion from their offshore stash.

    And in even later and more hushed news, Trumps companies get the contracts to build the $7 billion factory.

  • Who gets the credit? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @12:36PM (#54884021)

    Is this the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin that's been on the drawing board since 2010?

    • Re:Who gets the credit? (Score:5, Informative)

      by aicrules ( 819392 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @12:53PM (#54884257)
      While foxconn has had numerous plans to build plants, including in the US, Wisconsin has been selected as part of a new effort. That started with Apple directing Foxconn to investigate the possibility of opening plants in the US as a result of Donald Trump's election win and the associated expectations around changes in import costs. Foxconn the responded by doing so, had seven candidate states identified last month, and now has selected Wisconsin. However, it should be noted that they haven't had a great track record with following through. I hope Trump holds their feet to the fire to make sure they do. But given that track record all manner of watchdog (media, government, citizens) should want to hold Foxconn to their promise.

      • I hope Trump holds their feet to the fire to make sure they do.

        One only needs to see what happened at Carrier to see how well Trump does that.

        • Well, that's slightly different. Carrier isn't moving jobs to Mexico, and at the time of the deal it said that some jobs would be replaced with automation. Now, for it to be 600 of the 800 it was planning to move is a pretty big deal. But that does mean that 200 jobs were actually saved. While that means less than 20% of the jobs saved from moving them to Mexico are going to still exist, they got to keep there job for over 6 months extra while knowing that they were likely going to need a new job anyw

          • While that means less than 20% of the jobs saved from moving them to Mexico are going to still exist, they got to keep there job for over 6 months extra while knowing that they were likely going to need a new job anyway. It's too bad the people who are lashing out against this didn't pay attention to the fact that the automation of some jobs was coming as an alternative. Oh well, if you only believe in reading headlines you're bound to be disappointed when the details hit you personally. With FoxConn either they build the plant or they don't. And yes, Trump will likely move on, but that means local govt, media and citizens need to keep vigilant watch and spam Paul Ryan's office with calls and emails if it seems like Foxconn is not following through.

            I read an article today where somebody (NY Times I think) talked to people at the Carrier site who just got laid off and a whole lot of them were really surprised by the action, including a lot of Trump backers who got the axe. I can't speak to whether these people were stupid or delusional, but they certainly seemed surprised to me.

            Yeah, I'm sure that a bunch of citizens contacting Paul Ryan's office is totally going to change things when Foxconn ends up doing nothing. Not.

      • Wisconsin has been selected as part of a new effort. That started with Apple directing Foxconn to investigate the possibility of opening plants in the US as a result of Donald Trump's election win and the associated expectations around changes in import costs.

        I kind of doubt that. Why would a company make a huge investment in response to expectations of a tax that isn't actually expected to happen? It seems more likely that this is something that they were going to do anyway, and Trump's real accomplishment has been to convince Apple/Foxconn to let him take credit.

      • Well considering that Trump hasn't held Ford or Carrier to their promises, I doubt it. It's a soundbite when Trump originally announces new jobs. Following through has not been a strong point for the administration on this issue.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by halivar ( 535827 )

        This is a plant for making TV's, not iPhones.

  • non union / min wage / may need to be chipped and 39 hours a week on paper (so no benefits and by the time we open healthcare plan as well) But lots of OT needed. (living on site is preferred (nice low cost for that))

    • So no jobs would be better. Got it.
      • It depends. Losing $14billion via tax breaks to a Taiwanese company to create minimum wage jobs doesn't help America. That $14billion should be spent on education and training for those workers. Turning America into a 3rd world manufacturing hub makes zero sense because manufacturing will become mostly automated. We should be creating roboticists and technicians and selling our robots to other countries, not working for slave-wages for foreign countries.

  • Foxconn (Score:3)

    by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @01:00PM (#54884341)
    Thank god. The US was really falling behind with an an ever-growing suicidal worker gap. And now US high school students can also have "unpaid internships" working hours each day in factories to teach them valuable work skills, much like their Chinese contemporaries.

  • So Foxconn clearly doesn't NEED to build a plant in Wisconsin. They're doing fine with what they have, and presumably they could've built this plant in China where wages are lower.

    So that really raises the question of how much this must've been worth to them politically to help Trump out. They must be getting a really sweet deal to do this. I love Apple and generally agree with their politics, but let's be totally clear here, they're not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. And Foxconn is DEFINIT

    • So Foxconn clearly doesn't NEED to build a plant in Wisconsin. They're doing fine with what they have, and presumably they could've built this plant in China where wages are lower.

      You could say the same about foreign automakers.... yet Toyota, Hyundai, Subaru, etc. all have plants in the US.

      Politics is always a consideration. But as with most business decisions, there are multiple benefits to consider. As automation improves, labor cost becomes less important. And as screens get larger, they become harder to ship. The panel and coverglass are the largest components. So I would expect Foxconn to import electronics from Asia and assemble panels in the US, using coverglass produced stat

  • Right? Because they treat their employees so badly, quite a lot find a jump from the roof preferable.

  • Deplorables with incomes? Ew. Deindustrialize.

    /s

  • In a totally unrelated story, the suicide rate [wikipedia.org] in Wisconsin is at an all time high...
    • According to your own link, the worst year for suicides at Foxconn was 14 suicides out of 930,000 employees. This is substantially lower than the US suicide rate, which is 12.6 suicides per 100,000 people per year.
  • move in, take bunch of tax breaks that basically pay for the whole thing then leave in 5 years when the tax breaks run out. To be fair Carrier got the tax breaks and didn't even wait the 5 years.

  • Most of the plant will be run in the dark by robots.

    Have fun believing in the jobs, because they're like pipeline jobs, 99 percent disappear once it's built.

    Oh, wait, did I burst your bubble?

  • It's a one-story building, because Foxconn employees have the annoying habit to jump from the roof.

  • With good internet connections they will be able to run and manage the robots remotely.

    Thanks Trump!

  • The quote from Terry Gou about the possible number of jobs is misleading. There will not be 30,000 - 50,000 jobs involved for the plant in SE Wisconsin, more like 3000, if that many. Let's not conflate the possible economic benefits. I cite the report on PBS Newshour tonight to back my claims.

  • After all, that and the guard towers are what Foxconn is famous for, other than dirt cheap labor sleeping in rows in barracks with bunk beds.
  • Since FoxConn does not share their business strategy to show projected ROI on this Potential investment the sky is the limit on guessing rationales. Lower Costs = unlikely Strategic location = not to far from O'hare airport a mid-west hub, along with train freight and trucking highways so ok relative to East Coast but not a major advantage. A hedge against supply disruptions if political tensions arise seems possible though other countries could offer similar benefits cheaper except for the military might

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