Foxconn Raising Prices to Avoid Further Suicides

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[citation][nom]AndrewCutter[/nom][/citation]
Not to mention the cost of research and development. I don't know why people think the actual cost of an iPhone is only $6.54.
 
so.... do the big wigs get pay raises too ?
im guessing the bosses make an obscene amount of money compared to the assembly workers, i dont mind paying a little more if it meant some factory worker is getting a little more, but i do mind paying a little more to feed some fat dude in an office
 
[citation][nom]JimmiG[/nom]The only reason stuff is so cheap these days is because it's made by slave workers in Asia. If everything was being manufactured in the EU, US etc., with the wages and working conditions people expect, your motherboard wouldn't be $150, it would be $1500.[/citation]

If there was an increase in product prices to that extent, it wouldn't be because of worker salaries, it would be due to our faulty tax system that punishes those who produce more, and the astounding costs in legal and licensing fees to even begin and run a manufacturing facility. The CEO of Intel even said it costs $1 Billion more to build and run a plant in the US than in an Asian territory because of these issues.

You want companies to come back, you want them to generate more jobs stateside, tell your lawmakers to back the hell off with over regulation and taxation and let the producers produce without worrying about hitting that next tier that forces them to work even harder to break even.
 
[citation][nom]Compulsive1[/nom]If you built the iphone in USA or EU, the labor might be 10 times higher, or 65 dollars. This would increase the price of the final product by roughly 100-120 dollars after markups. Right now the entry level iphone cost 600 dollars, so a 100 dollar price increase would make it 16.6% more expensive.I bet that if given two choices at the store- to get an iphone made in China or EU / USA, vast majority would pick the Chinese phone knowing well they contribute to human misery. But they would justify it anyway.[/citation]

I'd like to know where you get your numbers, because in no manufacturing plant that I have ever been in in this country were any laborers (who are the people on the assembly line btw) getting paid $65, the most I would see is $10-12/hr, tops, depending on what was being produced and what their part in the line was, most of the time they were getting minimum wage (and this is in factories all over the country from CA to Maine). And seeing as how the assembly line is the biggest chunk of manufacturing workers, it wouldn't surprise me that those were the one's killing themselves, because it's just a general rule of most jobs that the juniors get the shittiest wages, shifts and taskings, and that combined with living in an overcrowded, underfed, and over dictated country, it isn't really any wonder.
 
foxconn and apple both are lame. better idea is to hold onto your money and stop buying all this crap. nobody needs any of it. i've stopped buying a lot of things because i'm sick of people whining about 'this is all coming from china' or 'so many foxconn suicides' well good thing I don't own any apple iphone junk. this is all depressing.
 
I think it's a great thing and I hope other companies follow them. It will increase overall conditions of the workers and, who knows, when they have decent enough conditions so that they're not considrere "cheap labour", we might stop outsourcing to other countries! A man can dream...
 
I always heard/read about how bad working conditions are over there, but I recently watched a documentary on the TV show Independent Lens, titled 'China Blue' ( http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/ ) and it was about how Levi jeans are made in China and distributed world wide. It documents their working conditions/environments... DAMN, it SO BAD over there. I feel SO lucky to work in a country that has labor laws. Unbelievable what they have to do to earn a 'living'... It's a good flick to check out.
 
I feel better about nVidia choosing FoxConn to produce nVidia's own GPU cards...lol. Wow...wonder what it would take to get over worked enuff to even think about suicide?!? 8-o
 
[citation][nom]i_like_pie[/nom]I always heard/read about how bad working conditions are over there, but I recently watched a documentary on the TV show Independent Lens, titled 'China Blue' ( http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/ ) and it was about how Levi jeans are made in China and distributed world wide. It documents their working conditions/environments... DAMN, it SO BAD over there. I feel SO lucky to work in a country that has labor laws. Unbelievable what they have to do to earn a 'living'... It's a good flick to check out.[/citation]

one reason I quit buying Levi products when my jeans stopped saying "MADE IN THE USA" on them. I still own some really old levi that are made in the united states. I believe they may have been manufactured in SF, CA who knows. but made in china levis? really? they must think I am stupid. I don't buy it.
 
[citation][nom]protectionist_d0uche[/nom]Cheap labor is the new slavery. Slavery wasn't free back in the day, you had to feed them, so the slaves worked your field, and consumed part of the harvest. Contrary to republican propaganda, the US was never truly prosperous or powerful until after WW2, especially the south where slavery was most prevalent.By the same token, the US has never been prosperous since we gave up on job protectionism to pursue cheap-labor AKA neo-slavery. It's been one continuous downhill slide, and it won't get better until we move jobs back here, and pay a living wage for them.[/citation]

I could not agree more... and the sooner, the better! There will get to be a point where the workers in China will demand wage parity with what Americans and other 1st worlders earn, and at that point, localized manufacturing will be the way to go, both ethically and economically. Let it be known that the ball has started rolling.
 
[citation][nom]CaffeineCarl[/nom]I could not agree more... and the sooner, the better! There will get to be a point where the workers in China will demand wage parity with what Americans and other 1st worlders earn, and at that point, localized manufacturing will be the way to go, both ethically and economically. Let it be known that the ball has started rolling.[/citation]

Slavery cost more than hiring Irish immigrants in the USA. Buying a slave was a lot more expensive. What people don't seem to realize is that it was not a good idea to mistreat slaves. Mistreating slaves, which then were considered "property" (and not to be contrary or anything I don't regard people as property even in past history), would be foolish because they could have health problems which could cost more money to fix or they could die and you lost all the money you spent.

On the other hand if you hired an Irishman or some kind of indentured servant came along, they would get an extremely low wage or nothing at all and all the other problems were irrelevant to the person who hired.

Which of them were worse of? you guessed it, the latter and they were not Blacks.
 
Anyway, veered off topic. I chat with people who work in China sometimes. a $1k/mo wage is a high wage. These are the type of people I usually come across online and they are all good people and such. I knew an American who went over there and was making 1k/mo it is enough to pay the bills and have a decent relationship with a woman there and also take care of all of her needs. it is a different standard of living there but he was fat when he lived here and when he came back to the USA, he was skinny.
 
[citation][nom]hoof_hearted[/nom]What bugs the crap out of me is the fact that Apple only pays $6.54 per phone. Where does the rest of the money go? Hell, I'd for $100 for a Foxconn iClone, cutting Apple out of the picture and giving Foxconn an extra $93.46 per unit to spread between the CEOs and workers. It is win-win for everybody except Apple.[/citation]
It costs $6.54 to actually assemble the phone. Components cost more.
 
OK, so those defending cheap-labor/slavery because it would just cost too much to make products, I suppose you think that huge trade deficits are acceptable?

If high wages are not acceptable, then the cost of living needs to come down, which means douchebag landlords/real-estate-flippers need to stop driving up housing prices by buying up and flipping every house that isn't already overpriced. Next, a whole lot of "debt-slaves" are going to have to default on their debts incurred during the high-wage era, it won't be feasible to pay those debts off if wages go down.

The alternative is to grossly inflate our currency, which the rich do not want because it devalues all of the debt that they worked so hard to get everyone in...

 
For those who think there's an exponential cost savings for outsourcing labor to China:

China uses a lot of outdated manufacturing practices, mainly, people putting stuff together by hand. In America, instead of having unskilled labor assembling stuff by hand, we automate the piss out of our assembly lines. The end result is that you have a tiny fraction of the number of workers, but most of them will be highly skilled workers monitoring sophisticated machinery, and as such can command high wages.
 
What bugs the crap out of me is the fact that Apple only pays $6.54 per phone. Where does the rest of the money go?
Click to expand...

... It costs 6.54 to assemble the phone, not for the components, its already been stated in other articles that the iphone costs about 200$ to make or some such number.
 
Who wouldn't suicide if they had no choice but to work 15 hours a day/ 90 hours a week for little pay. They have to lower hours and increase wage
 
Btw thanks for suggesting the documentary "China blue" i_like_pie. i watched a preview and it looks very interesting, ill see if i can find it
 
[citation][nom]xerroz[/nom]Btw thanks for suggesting the documentary "China blue" i_like_pie. i watched a preview and it looks very interesting, ill see if i can find it[/citation]

It truly is an eye-opening documentary. I think is it something most should see. And in that documentary, most of the workers are teenagers!!! I still floors me that these conditions still exist. Crazy world . . .
 
Sigh
Soo many dip sticks with there democratic opinion.
Keep out of it, Communism requires a different viewpoint and understanding of how the process works. Applying a democratic viewpoint to Communism does not work.
Go understand the second before you open your mouths.
 
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