

4,000 Foxconn workers on strike over iPhone 5 quality control measures - sandipc
http://www.bgr.com/2012/10/05/iphone-5-foxconn-workers-strike-quality-control-measures-cited/

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AlexMuir
Here's a crazy idea.

A hedge fund puts a couple billion dollar short on Apple, and then pays 20,000
Foxconn workers $5,000 each to take the month off from tomorrow and go
somewhere else. That's a $100m outlay for a vastly higher profit.

It's not a serious suggestion but it's feasible. It's an interesting situation
- an extremely highly valued company underpinned by extremely cheap labour.

~~~
jrockway
Hedge funds (and anyone) can make money regardless of the direction the market
moves, or even if the market doesn't move. So why would they do something
risky, illegal, and difficult that has the potential for unbounded losses?

~~~
rdl
It's easier for a third part with only money to cause damage to apple (which
will happen in a known time period) than to cause a buff.

(an industry player could cause positive effects, like a huge purchase of
Apple into a new industry like enterprise/government, or vendor neutrality for
public sector purchases, or Microsoft committing to OSX as a tier-1 OS, etc.,
but a hedge fund can't do that)

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annon
Foxconn denied the report this morning. This article is referencing a release
from yesterday.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/business/foxconn-denies-
re...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/business/foxconn-denies-report-of-
unrest-at-iphone-factory.html)

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rabidsnail
Who is China Labor Watch and who are they funded by?

~~~
radicaldreamer
A quick Google search yields:
<http://chinalaborwatch.org/upfile/20110706Annual.pdf> (list of large donors)

+

<http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/OurPeople.html>

Seems like a fairly new, pretty standard 501(c)(3)

~~~
davidandgoliath
Note: Anonymous donors are also allowed and aren't included on that list. Not
saying anything is odd about it all. ;)

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Cieplak
I don't mean to justify Apple's policies with regards to Foxconn, but Apple
delivers its products on time, on a massive scale. Contrast this with Lenovo,
who released a Macbook Air copycat in August, the X1 Carbon. I ordered it as
soon as it came out, and it still has not shipped.

~~~
hadem
I had a Lenovo and hated it. It felt like a cheap computer made entirely of
plastic. With normal use, the enclosure started to crack. Later pieces of the
enclosure actually started falling off. I'll never buy one again.

~~~
kalleboo
You mean like virtually every single MacBook ever? A fault Apple only fixed by
discontinuing the line?
[https://www.google.com/search?q=macbook+wrist+rest+cracks...](https://www.google.com/search?q=macbook+wrist+rest+cracks&tbm=isch)

~~~
carlesfe
Discontinuing the line and replacing all broken cases for free. I changed mine
twice at no charge.

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norswap
Foxconn has multiple plants with more than 200k workers. 4k workers on strike
must be a small enough thing for them.

~~~
potatolicious
2% of your entire workforce being on strike is not insignificant - imagine if
2% of the US population suddenly took to the streets!

This, followed by the riots at other Foxconn factories, labor action, and
becoming the whipping boy of the Chinese government, local labor, _and_
international rights groups.

No, I think this whole labor business is a _big_ friggin' deal for Foxconn
right now.

~~~
norswap
In Belgium where I live, 10% of prison wardens and 50% of the public
transportation sector go on strike at least thrice every year. Here at least
it's not a big deal. Sad country, I know.

I agree it's probably more significant in China, where they are not used to
this kind of behaviour.

~~~
africandawg
That is very bad. I was always curious how life is in Europe (being the first
world) but didn't think that's how the state of affairs would be.

Is it because of unions?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It's not "Europe", it's parts of it. France is particularly bad I hear,
supposedly paralysed by unions. In the UK things are much better because
unions lost a lot of their power in the 80s under Thatcher.

~~~
barrkel
FWIW, France has a lower proportion of unionized workforce than the US, and a
lot lower than the UK in the public sector. It's more about cultural
differences than any single thing like unions.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Oh, I didn't know that. I've just heard bad things about it.

Although I might be confusing this with the government business laws in
France, which are also a bit messy. There's a reason lots of French companies
have exactly 49 employees.

~~~
barrkel
I found it amusing that, when in college, the only people who objected to the
on-campus bar's pool table usage scheme - "winner stays, loser pays" - in the
whole four years I was there, were French :)

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joe_the_user
_“It was reported that factory management and Apple, despite design defects,
raised strict quality demands on workers, including indentations standards of
0.02mm and demands related to scratches on frames and back covers"_

It seems like a few cracks are showing the ole' Apple's armor.

~~~
sigzero
I am not sure how you make that deduction.

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xk_id
good marketing for Apple :)

