Workers of Supplier for Apple and IBM in China Strike

[btarunr]

Over a thousand workers in Shenzhen, China went on strike against their employer Jingmo Electronics Corporation (JEC), which is a supplier for companies like Apple and IBM. According to China Labor Watch (CLW), a New York-based watchdog of labor rights in China, and an advocate of ethical consumerism, "the motivation behind the strike was the factory's decision to make workers work nightly overtime." CLW goes on to add that the workers had been asked to work from 6 PM to midnight and sometimes even up to 2 AM on top of the usual four to four and a half day shifts from 7 AM to 11.30 or 1 PM to 5 PM.

CLW goes on to add that the workers "commonly worked anywhere from 100 to 200 hours of overtime a month," but the factory refused to let them put the hours in at the weekend because under Chinese labour law JEC would have had to double the wages. Authorities dispatched several hundred riot policemen to tackle striking workers. CLW called upon Apple and IBM to assume responsibility of for these workers' dissatisfaction, and work with JEC to improve the working conditions in the factory. Responding to the strike, JEC agreed to cut the average overtime hours, and resume operations soon.

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[RejZoR]

Outsourcing all the manufacturing to China will eventually hurt companies who all want cheap manufacturing and then sell it for premium price. Apple *cough*. Chinese ppl will also like to have a cut of that fat juicy pie. And i can't blame them...

 

[Crap Daddy]

When finally the Chinese and other people from that region will get paid wages comparable to Europe and US then where will all these multinationals go? Damn capitalists...

 

[pentastar111]

Yeah their get rich scheme is starting to indeed backfire.....NOBODY likes to work like slaves for pennies...pretty soon this "cheap" labor isnt going to be cheap anymore...they might as well move the factories back here when the wage increases bring their salaries closer to what U.S. wages are....you would think with all of them college trained peeps making these (outsourcing) decisions would have forseen that..BRILLIANT!!!! lol retards..thats what happens with greed

 

[cheesy999]

Yeah their get rich scheme is starting to indeed backfire.....NOBODY likes to work like slaves for pennies...pretty soon this "cheap" labor isnt going to be cheap anymore...they might as well move the factories back here when the wage increases bring their salaries closer to what U.S. wages are....you would think with all of them college trained peeps making these (outsourcing) decisions would have forseen that..BRILLIANT!!!! lol retards..thats what happens with greed

Could work both ways, i would love to see companies like Sony move back to having 'Made in Japan' Labels, we have stuff from Sony that's more then 40 years old and still works perfectly, and i'm 99% sure it's the 'Made in Japan' sticker that's responsible for it

 

[Easy Rhino]

When finally the Chinese and other people from that region will get paid wages comparable to Europe and US then where will all these multinationals go? Damn capitalists...

you do understand one of the main reasons china has been growing economically over the past 15 years is because they are becoming MORE capitalistic not less. if it were still 100% socialism you would have half the labor force getting half their current rate. economic growth out of the mud of communism takes several decades. besides, once they do get paid what we do then the products will be too expensive for us to buy and manufacturing will migrate to africa.

 

[pentastar111]

Could work both ways, i would love to see companies like Sony move back to having 'Made in Japan' Labels, we have stuff from Sony that's more then 40 years old and still works perfectly, and i'm 99% sure it's the 'Made in Japan' sticker that's responsible for it

agreeing with you on that....You would think though...that these decisions would have been thought out a little better....I mean Sony is making stuff here and Harley gets their shit made in India now...WTF??? Really?? MONEY makes people insane...and in the end everyone loses out.

 

[HossHuge]

you do understand one of the main reasons china has been growing economically over the past 15 years is because they are becoming MORE capitalistic not less. if it were still 100% socialism you would have half the labor force getting half their current rate. economic growth out of the mud of communism takes several decades. besides, once they do get paid what we do then the products will be too expensive for us to buy and manufacturing will migrate to africa.

You're correct sir.

50's to the 60's - manufacturing was mostly done in Western countries
70's to the 90's - Mexico, Central America and Taiwan. (Higher end stuff from Japan)
00's to the 20's - China, Vietnam, Thailand and some other Asian countires
20's to the ..... - Africa

See a pattern. As soon as labour prices increase. Companies get out of town.

 

[Easy Rhino]

so if we see a return of labor in mass the US then we are screwed because we probably wont be able to afford the products we make.

 

[mediasorcerer]

Too expensive??? Apple is one of the richest companies around, so why cant there executives etc take a slight pay cut instead? The wages of execs can border on obscene to ridiculous,.

 

[DannibusX]

From 1997 until this year, the Apple CEO made $1 per year. How much more would you cut?

Paart of the problem is the lack of tariffs and the rapid expansion of "free" trade agreements, it makes more sense to ship manufacturing jobs overseas not only because of the cheaper wages, but also the overhead of just employing people in general. Remember the healthcare law from last year? Wait until even more jobs go overseas because of the rising cost of employing people.

 

[Trackr]

You're correct sir.

50's to the 60's - manufacturing was mostly done in Western countries
70's to the 90's - Mexico, Central America and Taiwan. (Higher end stuff from Japan)
00's to the 20's - China, Vietnam, Thailand and some other Asian countires
20's to the ..... - Africa

See a pattern. As soon as labour prices increase. Companies get out of town.

Question is, where would they go from there?

There is no place worse off than Africa.

 

[RejZoR]

Anyone remembers early computers? I used to have Commodore 64 II (at least it said so on it, it looked more like some Amiga model though). Anyway, when i opened it up, almost every component in it had "Made in USA" written on it. Not just "Designed in USA", it actually said "Made in".

I can tell you where it will go. Europe is already using countries like Slovakia, Czech, Hungary and Poland for cheap manufacturing. USA is mostly using Mexico for that. But even these won't work for long... I wonder what was wrong with domestic manufacturing. Sure it's a bit more expensive but as far as logistics go, you don't have to carry stuff across entire globe since you're manufacturing it "in your backyard". But i guess transportation is so cheap its still better to make it in Asia and ship it to USA.

 

[HalfAHertz]

Question is, where would they go from there?

There is no place worse off than Africa.

Robots hopefully. I want skynet already...

 

[Edgarstrong]

It was only a question of time before this would commence. On one hand, the ordinary Chinese are as poor as ever, but unlike the situation in past when pretty much everyone was poor, now there is a huge disparity between the richest 10% and the poorest 10%. And that is a socially dangerous situation.

Secondly, when all factories were being moved to China, the corporations, governments and banks standing behind them managed to persuade the sheeple in the west that China was and would remain just a source of cheap labour force and that the Chinese would never be able to reverse engineer western technologies. And now I already see Chinese smart-phones getting all 5-star reviews on Amazon costing very, very little.

Thirdly, we are entering into the overproduction phase of the economical development cycle. And in a few years the situation will start resembling the one in the 30s. And that's scary.

 

[AsRock]

Too expensive??? Apple is one of the richest companies around, so why cant there executives etc take a slight pay cut instead? The wages of execs can border on obscene to ridiculous,.

Yeah for how expensive Apple stuff is they should be getting paid more but that's nothing new is it really ?.

 

[Depth]

Anyone remembers early computers? I used to have Commodore 64 II (at least it said so on it, it looked more like some Amiga model though). Anyway, when i opened it up, almost every component in it had "Made in USA" written on it. Not just "Designed in USA", it actually said "Made in".

I can tell you where it will go. Europe is already using countries like Slovakia, Czech, Hungary and Poland for cheap manufacturing. USA is mostly using Mexico for that. But even these won't work for long... I wonder what was wrong with domestic manufacturing. Sure it's a bit more expensive but as far as logistics go, you don't have to carry stuff across entire globe since you're manufacturing it "in your backyard". But i guess transportation is so cheap its still better to make it in Asia and ship it to USA.

This.

In Norway fishsticks are produced in a Norwegian factory then frozen and shipped to Poland for packaging, before it gets shipped back to be sold in Norway. Even with all the logistics involved it's still slightly cheaper than just packing it here.

 

[pentastar111]

This.

In Norway fishsticks are produced in a Norwegian factory then frozen and shipped to Poland for packaging, before it gets shipped back to be sold in Norway. Even with all the logistics involved it's still slightly cheaper than just packing it here.

I dont know HOW that can possibly be cheaper...

 

[HossHuge]

Question is, where would they go from there?

There is no place worse off than Africa.

Well by that time all the ice will have melted from the Arctic so then we can use Eskimos/Inuit from All the northern countiries.