

1,000 workers at Apple’s keyboard suppler in Shenzhen walk out in protest - DiabloD3
http://www.cultofmac.com/131797/1000-workers-at-apples-keyboard-suppler-in-shenzhen-walk-out-in-protest/

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Xuzz
Apple, and LG, and IBM, and... (Why are factories often attributed solely to
Apple? I think we should hold all companies using the products from factories
responsible for who they supply from; the article even claims only 1/10th of
the factory is for Apple.)

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eurokc98
The article is published on Cult of Mac. The blogs audience is most likely
only interested in Apple related news and events. For its target audience it
is perfectly acceptable to present Apples role, even being a minor player.

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radicaldreamer
Good for them! Organizing is a good way to fight these abusive labor
practices.

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nhannah
For those of you not familiar with Chinese manufacturing this is essentially
bullshit. If you walked in to the factory tomorrow offered way better working
conditions and no overtime everyone would quit. This is purely about money,
and most likely fueled by the Foxconn/apple publicity from last year. I worked
at a Chinese contract manufacturer for six months on site and our biggest
cause of workers quitting was lack of OT. The most interesting part of this
article is which factory it is though, I am not sure of the percent of
keyboards they make but I believe this is the fabled factory I was told about
while in SE China that makes the majority of the keyboards in the world.

Just remember what happened at Foxconn before power to the people starts
rolling off your tongue; they had the best working conditions in any Chinese
factory(arguably), a number of suicides that was below the national average
for the number of people working at the factory, but because they where
Taiwanese owned the Chinese gov't let the media run with the Apple suicide
link. Foxconn raised salaries and it all disappeared. This isn't a human
rights situation, this is all about money on both sides.

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systems
well, I believe outsourcing in general, which is the reason why this problem
exists, should be controlled and better regulated

It causes unemployment (at least short term) in the country outsourcing its
work, and created bad working conditions and unfair working environment in the
country receiving the outsourced work

There is obviously something wrong, and the poor are being exploited.

One could argue that those poor exploited people would have been even poorer,
without the outsourcing model, and my answer to that, is that I don't mind or
see a problem in them being paid less, being paid less is for sure better than
not being paid at all.

But these stories are really more about greed and exploitation, which we
should definitely stand against by asking for more regulations, monitoring and
rules for outsourcing

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ticks
I can't see the situation improving. Governments are in a weak position due to
globalisation. If they increase regulation and improve conditions then those
businesses (especially the ones with poor ethical standards) will just move on
to a more desperate country.

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tux1968
We're likely to hear more and more of this over the next few decades as
workers in China retrace the steps of the labour movement in the west. Here's
hoping them speedy success.

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nkassis
The work hours are weird. 7-11:30 then 6-12pm? Why not have a full days work
like 8-5 with one hour break ? What does splitting the day like that offer?

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bobds
Their regular hours ar 7-11:30 and 1-5. The 6-12 shift is added as overtime.

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octsyst
Why do the articles say Apple or IBM supplier? It's a Chinese company that
treats its employees like shit and makes money by doing business with Apple.
It's the Chinese govt. that needs to intervene.

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wslh
I think robots will completely replace humans on these kind of factories.

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latch
I don't know anything about fabrication, but my spidey sense tells me that
this won't happen for a while. It isn't a capability issue, it's a cost issue.
There's obviously a tipping point, but cheap human labour has to be way ahead.

For robots, beyond the cost of powering and maintenance, repurposing has got
to be a killer. Changes in material (plastics, to aluminum to composite...)
has got to wreck havoc with automated assembly lines.

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acgourley
And yet their keyboards are still 70 dollars.

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falling
People complaining about high prices and factory working conditions at the
same time always baffles me.

You do realize that the cheaper some product is, the less these people are
going to be paid, right?

Of course the reverse is not a given, but at least it gives more wiggle room
to everybody.

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white_devil
_You do realize that the cheaper some product is, the less these people are
going to be paid, right?_

They'll be paid the minimum amount possible anyway, and the rest just goes to
company profits.

