Foxconn's Founder Opens Up About Making iPhones 384
eldavojohn writes "Bloomberg Businessweek has an article of interest resulting from a three-hour interview with Foxconn founder Terry Gou (single page), whose company manufactures 137,000 iPhones a day. The article profiles Gou's rise to Foxconn but also offers some interesting tidbits you might not know. On why he is not opening factories in the United States, Gou frankly states, 'If I can automate in the US and ship to China, cost-wise it can still be competitive. But I worry America has too many lawyers. I don't want to spend time having people sue me every day.' If you're interested in how a modern day Henry Ford thinks, you can read the rest about the man steering the ship of the world's largest producer of electronics components and China's largest exporter. This unprecedented transparency was part of an agreement Gou made with his customers during his delayed response to an increasing number of Foxconn suicides."
Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
He's basically worried that if he tried to pull the same shit he gets away with in China, he would be shut down. This is undoubtedly a valid concern, but it does cast a depressing light on outsourcing. Basically the US is losing manufacturing jobs because we don't let business completely stomp all over the rights of the workers anymore.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I read that line as a worry of a massive unexpected cost. If you can automate a whole factory, and then the UPS guy says he gets injured on your premises, you can lose 20 million easy.
No one would run a factory that was, even with the supposed horrible conditions, in the US. The labor costs alone (even if you only paid minimum wage or less) would be staggering. You'd replace as many people as possible with robots to keep costs down.
But then someone decides to sue you for something ridiculous, and your legal bills are huge. You settle or spend years spending tons of defend it. Or maybe it's a real issue, but instead of the $30k for medical bills and more for pain and suffering, they get some some like $10 million that is completely out of line relative to their injury.
His view sounds rather sane to me. And the last pages of the article point out just how good Foxcon is compared to many other Chinese employers. Conditions there don't sound anywhere near as bad as some of the stuff that when on in the US during the industrial revolution.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Interesting)
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The point is that Chinese companies are not moving to the US because their PERCEPTION of the business climate in the US. For better or worse they believe that they will get sued. So why bother.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
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>>>I read that line as a worry of a massive unexpected cost.
That's because you probably don't know about Foxconn's labor violations. Even China has rules saying workers must get a break every 2 hours, and they are not allowed to work more than 50 hours per week, but Foxconn routinely ignores those rules by making workers skip the 2-hour downtime and working 70-80 hours. In the US lawyers would step-up and represent the workers in a lawsuit, but over in China the lawyers are so few that Foxconn do
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For those of you who haven't heard of it before...
Phossy Jaw.
Google it kids. Yup, in the USA too.
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I was going to down-vote this, but I decide to post this instead.
UPS guy says he gets injured on your premises, you can lose 20 million easy
I want you to think about this, a mine in West Virginia blows up and KILLS 20+ people. They got a slap on the wrist in that they have to deal with inspections! Basically they killed people AND NOTHING HAPPENED. Lawsuits are always the boogeyman that businessmen like to use about costs in the US and it is crap. The fact is in the US businesses are not treated roughl
that's one way to see it, here's another (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the US does have too many laws and lawyers. Perhaps it is more competitive to produce products somewhere else. Perhaps US workers think they are more valuable than they really are (so they erect laws to "enforce" that value). Did you ever consider that maybe it's not exploitation he is after but a better sense of balance? The world is not black and white. This is not a "workers of the world unite" vs "the evil business owners". You do recognize there is a middle ground, don't you?
This guy is telling you exactly what his risk/reward calculation is and you only look at one side of the equation.
Instead of responding with cries of exploitation, as yourself this: could he be right?
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Instead of responding with cries of exploitation, as yourself this: could he be right?
If working people so hard they start killing themselves is right, sign me up for wrong.
I'm not a fan of imperialism but I'd actually rather America try to conquer China than emulate it if push came to shove.
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For the size of his work force you would expect about that number of suicides in the general population anyway. I live in Canada and a quick search said 25 males and 5 females per 100,000 of population per year in 1994.
Re:that's one way to see it, here's another (Score:5, Informative)
For the size of his work force you would expect about that number of suicides in the general population anyway.
Across the general population, yes. But the general population doesn't work in a factory. "General population" includes an awful lot of people who can't work in a factory, including children, babies, the elderly, the infirm, and even people who live too far away from any factory to work in one.
Add in the fact that teens have a disproportionate number of suicides, and that old people also kill themselves, and it's not difficult to realize that a small subset of the population having a suicide rate equal to that of the general population is an anomaly worth investigating.
Re:that's one way to see it, here's another (Score:4, Informative)
A subpopulation having the same rate as the whole population is not an anomaly. It is the very definition of "not an anomaly". What I think you're suggesting is that the subpopulation that works in the factory is not representative of the whole population, and is in fact skewed in a way that would be expected to lower their suicide rate, but that this has not occurred.For example, that working-age individuals in cities have lower suicide rates than average. That would require some elaboration and justification on your part. (Equivalently, that the subpopulation that works in the factory needs to be compared to a matched control group, and not just the population average.)
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In sum, I guess I don't understand why you got modded up. Is it just because it feels good to say "If X is right, then I'd rather be wrong than right"? Yea, ok. Brownie points for you.
Re:that's one way to see it, here's another (Score:5, Informative)
There were three suicides at my college in the four years I went there, and it was a small school with less than 2000 students. That means that we averaged 1 suicide per 2600 students per year. During the worst of Foxconn's suicide 'outbreak' there were 10 completed suicide attempts over a 5 month period out of 960,000 workers. That means 1 suicide for every 80,000 employees per year. So by that measurement, my college was apparently 30x more likely to drive someone to suicide.
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So you rather kill them than letting them decide what conditions they would work under. Gotcha
Nope. Was it really that hard to read my whole two sentence post?
I'd rather kill some of them than let them decide what conditions we would work under.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Insightful)
Tidbits from TFA:
"a harsh environment is a good thing"
"hungry people have especially clear minds"
This man is a sadist. The sad part is that (mostly) unregulated capitalism, as it exists now in China, essentially forces him to either be an asshole or go out of business.
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NO, it doesn't. It does give him an excuse to be that way.
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Prominent on display are biographies of Gou, one of which collects his many aphorisms, including "work itself is a type of joy," "a harsh environment is a good thing," "hungry people have especially clear minds," and "an army of one thousand is easy to get, one general is tough to find."
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Here, let me put those in context for you.
It's easy for an out-of-context sound bite to sound awful (or great); but partial second-hand quotes seldom tell the whole story and probably shouldn't be used as a basis for judgment. For reference, here's the full quote from TFA - which is itself excerpting from a book:
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Interesting)
precisely.
This is why there should be a huge tariff on all goods imported from companies that don't meet min. US federal standards.
If that's too much for them to do, then someone will pen a shop in the US to cater to the US.
Having a minimum level playing field is the only way a global economy can work without dragging people into the lowest tiers of poverty.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
These ideas did not help make America great. They helped make robber barons rich and delayed reduced the greatness we could have achieved without robber barons leaching off all the wealth. China may be a different culture, one that has very different ideas about authority and conformity and has for longer than we in the west have been civilized, but they trade with us and what they do is an unfair trade practice. We should sue them, and if they won't change their ways, impose tariffs to address this unfairness.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
, but they trade with us and what they do is an unfair trade practice. We should sue them, and if they won't change their ways, impose tariffs to address this unfairness
Their culture allows them to do business differently than we do; unfortunately this puts us at a disadvantage. Instead of finding better ways to compete, you're suggesting that we sue them into changing their culture - bringing them down (or raising them up, depending on perspective) to our level simply because we can't keep up?
That kind of argument scares the crap out of me, because I get the feeling people are starting to take it seriously.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't compete because we believe in a madle class, fair wor wages, and competition in the work force.
So either we remove all regulations and let people be indentured servants living in horrible conditions; or we raise the price for them to sell in the US unless they meet a min. standard.
THAT'S the solution to having a global economy that creates a middle class and no just exploit the poor making them poorer.
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THis is aside from the fact that - at least from TFA - working conditions might not be
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it so unreasonable to focus instead on producing the same products with less labor (and thus less cost) than those willing and able to propagate such practices?
That sounds great. I'm all for increasing efficiency and applying technology to the issue. But there's limits. Some jobs are difficult to automate. And even when you can automate, the machines have to be paid for and someone has to run the machines.
This leads us to two issues. One, the machines have to be more cost-effective than an exploited work-force. And even then, what can be automated here can be automated there where the workforce that runs the machines are cheaper (read: exploited).
THis is aside from the fact that - at least from TFA - working conditions might not be quite as bad as the media hysteria has made them out to be.
Yes - I'm sure the suicides and the expose on working conditions at the company by China Business News were just aberrations of an overzealous imagination. Meanwhile, Foxconn hired a New York public relations firm because they just want to get their name out there.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Interesting)
why not develop improved manufacturing technology and capability -- demonstrating that it's possible to make competitive products without "exploiting" the poor?
Exactly, this is a good strategy for countries that can develop advanced industrial robots. The top 10 countries by robot density [ieee.org] all have successful economies when compared with the rest of the world. There are some industries where high levels of automation are not possible yet (sewing clothes together, assembling complex 3D structures, picking vegetables, things that rely on hand-eye coordination and human mobility); these are the human labour intensive industries where cost pressures mean labour is generally sourced from other countries (where outsourcing is possible), or immigrants (where local). But for everything else, the developed world needs to continue to move from a culture of "building stuff" to a culture of "building robots that build stuff". Competing directly with countries like China to provide cheap labour is not going to work, waiting for the salary of the average Chinese to reach Western levels will take too long, and starting a trade war through punitive taxation is only going to hurt both sides in the long term. I do find it odd that people seriously still think the Western world could be competitive with China in traditional manufacturing - it is simple economics that work will flow to the human worker who costs 1/10th of the competition.
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The Chinese believe in a middle class too. In the past 20-30 years, they've gone from society with pretty much zero middle class (just peasants and a few privileged Party members at the top), to a middle class that dwarfs America's. Of course, their middle class doesn't make as much money as ours, but they don't need it because their cost of living is much lower. They have all the stuff we do: houses, cars, computers, iPhones, etc. A lot of people are complaining even, because so many Chinese are buying
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Insightful)
or we raise the price for them to sell in the US unless they meet a min. standard.
That is kind of what the European Union does with respects to its member nations. In exchange for becoming part of the EU and getting access to the EU single market, countries have to implement EU Directives into national law, including human rights and employment rights, and basically cede authority over parts of their legal system to EU courts. Freedom of movement means that workers in a less prosperous country, or a country with objectionable work conditions, can easily move to a more prosperous one. The model has worked pretty well - wealthier countries have gained access to cheaper labour and new markets, and poorer countries gain access to cheaper services and technology. In contrast, free trade agreements that involve no aspect of human rights or employment rights often mean that work flows to those countries where workers are subject to the most unreasonable working conditions, and lack of freedom of movement means that inhabitants of those countries have no choice but to stay there.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm saying that we uphold our values and protect our interests. Is that really too much to ask of a nation that has been touted as the best on Earth?
Why should give them the benefit of our trade when they do not behave in a fair manner? You seem to be saying we shouldn't hold our trading partners accountable for their human rights violations. Why is it okay to do business with some mass murderers and not others?
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Do you think a culture that does terrible things to the people who participate in that culture (many examples of society demanding morally reprehensible things - stoning the innocent, hanging people based on skin colour, etc) should be allowed to continue, unchecked?
I would likely agree that the best way to cause people to change is education, and not suing or taxes (the western way, for sure), but would it really be best to just let them do bad things to their people?
Don't we punish North Ko
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Be careful not to use the developing world's "culture" as an excuse for them to seriously exploit their workers.
Anyways, it's much harder to innovate new products and business methods than it is to copy them and ship that work off to somewhere with a fraction of the wage rates and much less stringent rules about worker safety, pollution controls, etc.
And it's even worse when you look at it at the level of your average middle class adult. A person can only learn new skills so fast, and that's if you can find
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What we consider "sub-par" here, is considered "making a living" over there. The idea that suddenly every Chinese corporation will raise working standards is laughable. What would happen is that they would employ a hell of a
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't really about human rights or pollution. It really is about unfair trade. Having lax environmental and worker safety laws amounts to the same thing as directly subsidizing your industries, which the WTO frowns on.
You forgot D) China complies with worldwide standards and practices fair trade.
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The problem is, option D won't happen. Unless China's government radically changes to support the complete free market, option D is equivalent to option E which is a
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With the obvious out of the way, what you propose would shake both economies severely. People are willing to pay for the price of goods as they stand right now, which is with cheap foreign goods on the market. If these goods suddenly take a hike due to a tarif
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is due to reducing taxes on the rich, tax loopholes for the rich, wages not keeping up with inflation, decrease in benefits for American workers,
1) Despite marginal top tax rates of >90% until the Kennedy tax cut of 1964, the effective tax rate for the richest one 1% of households was 32.2% in 1952 going down to 24.6% in 1963. After the Kennedy tax cuts, effective tax rates for the richest 1% rose to 28.9% until Ronald Reagan took office and declining to 22.1% following the 1986 tax reductions.
The
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to do something that threatens the endless supply of cheap, pointless shit lining the shelves at WalMart? I think you underestimate the popular consumer backlash that would create.
Meh, the consumer backlash would sort itself out, due to the sudden rise of employment, manufacturing, and so on in the US. They'd piss and moan that tube socks cost more, but they'd get over it. Once upon a time we used to repair holes in socks and other clothing instead of chucking it an buying it new...this is thanks to the absurdly low cost of new thanks to exploited labour.
It really wouldn't be the end of the world if we returned to a paradigm where things initially cost more and got repaired instead of replaced.
The real backlash would come from Walmart and the other corporations.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple fix, lower taxes on those making under $1 million per year, to make up for the increase. To make up for that, raise taxes on those making over $1 million.
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That is just fine, the more useless leaches "Go Galt" and flee the states, the better. We don't need those parasites. If they want to do business here, we still get to tax them until they bleed. And if they don't, great! Less competition for real American businesses.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Insightful)
Less competition for real American businesses.
Let me get this straight: you want to tax corporate interests so much that they want to leave the US. And when they do, somehow you feel that's a good thing as there is "less competition for real American businesses"?
Do you honestly believe that would be the result? I don't believe you thought your cunning plan all the way through.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sick and tired of the rich blackmailing us like this. We do not need them. Where would they go, anyway? Would they really be willing to give up such a lucrative market? If they leave, it's not as though the demand for goods and services disappears. We really don't need their investments. We can borrow from ourselves and pay it off by growing our economy.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you propose to grow an economy without someone to finance the businesses?
Economies grow through entrepreneurship. Apple and Google grow the economy. Whole foods grows the economy. Random guy with a family owned food mart who never expands does *not* grow the economy. The economy grows through businesses expanding and finding or creating new markets. You need rich people to do that! That doesn't mean they shouldn't have to live under the same rules as the rest of us, but what kind of communist fantasy-land do you think can maintain a modern economy without someone getting rich off of it?
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Funny)
You like playing host to parasites, I get it. Might I suggest you move to Somalia? There aren't any pesky laws keeping the parasites off you over there.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:4, Insightful)
And those places have LOWER taxes than we do? The fact is, the rich are already investing there and developing markets. There is no sense in developing markets here, the rich have already taken all the middle class' money. Why would they invest here when there is no demand? The American rich feel absolutely no loyalty to America or her citizens. They are already screwing us over, and the common wisdom seems to be that we need to lay back and take it, or they might leave us. Yes, please, my ass is feeling pretty chapped.
I'm tired of being the abused wife defending her retarded alcoholic husband when people point out that he's beaten her senseless.
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I hate this stupid concept that something has to "grown" in order to be worthwhile. It's economics, not vegetables.
If Apple never made a cent of profit but paid all of their manufacturers, all their rents and all their employes... would you still view that as bad for the economy?
Whatever they teach in economic schools is bullshit. You can't grow the economy forever. And if the only way for a company to survive is to grow, then one day the company will stop growing because they will be the only company left
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some imbalance in wealth is not only unavoidable, it is desirable to most people. In my experience, people like it when excellence is fairly rewarded, even if they know they themselves are not excellent. People who aren't hypercompetitive assholes, anyway. Equality of opportunity should be maintained, but it is equitable, not equal outcomes I am looking for.
When we as a society allow too much of an imbalance in ownership to occur, we can not maintain a true democracy, and we can not maintain a true free market. That kind of imbalance necessarily means that the rich do not play by the same rules as the rest of us, and it is a fantasy to think they do.
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If Microsoft told the German government they'll move lock stock and barrel for a tax rate lower than the US, how long would it take Germany to pass that law?
A week?
Same for DuPont, Apple, Intel, etc
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How do you propose to grow an economy without someone to finance the businesses?
Economies grow through entrepreneurship. Apple and Google grow the economy. Whole foods grows the economy. Random guy with a family owned food mart who never expands does *not* grow the economy. The economy grows through businesses expanding and finding or creating new markets. You need rich people to do that! That doesn't mean they shouldn't have to live under the same rules as the rest of us, but what kind of communist fantasy-land do you think can maintain a modern economy without someone getting rich off of it?
Why does it always have to be about growth?? How about the health of the economy? Wallstreet spouts the bullshit notion that a healthy economy is one based on [unsustainable] growth, fueled by borrowing and spending. Nevermind where it actually leads us (i.e. right where we are now)...
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Interesting)
Which part? China is a prime example of a hydraulic empire, [wikipedia.org] and their culture reflects that. Considering that they had their first major empire collapse in 500BC or so and six major players left were fielding million man, iron equipped armies at the time, I'm really not sure what you are referring to as 'nonsense.'
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Yeah, that is the court where we sue them for subsidizing their industry through lax environmental and worker safety laws. Subsidizing your industries so that they can produce items below cost (pollution and worker medical problems are costs) is not fair trade as defined by the WTO.
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I don't buy iCrap, but yes, I would pay more to have a clean conscience. Not supporting tyranny actually matters to decent people.
Re:Exploitation for the win! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that they are mortgaging the future by doing horrible, horrible things to their environment. Eventually, they'll have to fix them in order to become a 1st world nation. Take a look at Los Angeles, and what the California Air Resources Board has done to try and improve the air. Then take a look at photos of Wuhan or any of dozens of other industrial centers. You can't build a stable long term economy in a place where the air itself is debilitating. Same goes for water and soil pollution.
Take a look at Times Beach Missouri ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri [wikipedia.org] ) to get an idea of what they'll be up against in the future. I'm guessing that at its worst, Times Beach was less dangerous than residential areas in China today.
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From what I understand, the US is the "worst" in every possible measure. Various surveys say we are worst in healthcare. Worst in internet. Worst in transportation. Worst in taxation. Worst in lifespan. Worst in education. Worst in size of our waists. Wort quality in cars. Worst in consumer protection. And on and on and on.
I'm starting to wonder if these surveys are just political propaganda (i.e. "biased bullshit" to quote Penn&Teller) that aren't worth the paper they are printed on. For ex
yeah, right, the lawyers are the blame! (Score:3, Insightful)
More likely tat he wants to exploit the worker
What workers? He's talking automation (Score:2)
More likely tat he wants to exploit the worker
What workers? He said "'If I can *automate* in the US and ship to China, cost-wise it can still be competitive." He seems to be talking about replacing a manual assembly line in China with an automated/robotic assembly line in the US. You might be able to suggest that he wants to avoid environmental issues but labor issues do not seem to be relevant. As far as the US being an overly litigious environment, you will find few US citizens who would disagree.
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He seems to be talking about replacing a manual assembly line in China with an automated/robotic assembly line in the US.
And this is exactly what we've been seeing. US manufacturing production (in terms of dollars of product produced) was at an all-time high in 2008. However the number of manufacturing workers was at its 80-year low point. US manufacturing workers, armed with machines and robots, are becoming more and productive per worker.
This mirrors what we saw in agriculture, from most of the country
Manufacturing, but not jobs, returning to west (Score:2)
US manufacturing production (in terms of dollars of product produced) was at an all-time high in 2008. However the number of manufacturing workers was at its 80-year low point. US manufacturing workers, armed with machines and robots, are becoming more and productive per worker.
Not just in the US. My understanding is that Germany has remained competitive in manufacturing by investing heavily in robotics. Manufacturing may return to the west but jobs won't be.
More reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
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Or do you believe that laws in the US should apply everywhere? Such as the Patriot Act?
Robots subject to child labor laws? (Score:2)
not to do business in the U.S. we have all those pesky organizations like OSHA, and those weird fair labor standards laws and anti child labor laws that get in the way of a really stellar profit margin.
'If I can *automate* in the US ..."
;-)
Minimum wage, child labor and other regulations now apply to automated/robotic assembly lines? I think the "Futurama" society may be arriving before the year 3000.
Where's my anti-Foxconn? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm still waiting for an iPhone manufacturer that pays its workers a decent wage and respects meaningful safety standards. I'm willing to pay an extra $100+ for my iPhone to not have a guilty conscience. C'mon invisible hand, supply my demand already.
Re:Where's my anti-Foxconn? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still waiting for an iPhone manufacturer that pays its workers a decent wage and respects meaningful safety standards. I'm willing to pay an extra $100+ for my iPhone to not have a guilty conscience. C'mon invisible hand, supply my demand already.
Because you and the other twenty people willing to do this do not a market make.
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Then the thousands of iPhone buyers complaining about bad working conditions need to put up or shut up. Human rights ain't cheap, people.
They were destroyed in the 1970s and 80s (Score:2)
I'm still waiting for an iPhone manufacturer that pays its workers a decent wage and respects meaningful safety standards. I'm willing to pay an extra $100+ for my iPhone to not have a guilty conscience. C'mon invisible hand, supply my demand already.
The invisible hand has already spoken, such companies were driven out of business in the 1970s and 80s as *consumers* chose to purchase the less expensive imports from regions with questionable practices rather than US, Canadian and other regions with more developed legal, labor and environmental practices.
Technology may partially help remedy the situation. Automation and robotics could level the field, well at least for companies involved in manufacturing, not the factory / assembly line workers.
You
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The fact is that Foxconn has HALF the suicide rate of Italy, which has the LOWEST rate in Europe.
Hmmm, according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Greece has about half the rate of Italy... but your comparison is void anyway because:
a) An entire nation has a much more diverse population. Alcoholics, mentally ill, elderly etc. ("about 90 percent of persons who completed suicides in all age groups had [have] a diagnosable mental or substance abuse disorder" link [nami.org]). A young workforce that has been selectively recruited should have much lower levels of mental and substance abuse than the general population, and hence, much lo
he's not a modern day Henry Ford (Score:5, Insightful)
Ford wanted his workers to have a living wage, to be able to afford the products they made.
Foxconn doesn't even employ workers long-term, they hire on a week-by-week basis.
I actually don't even dislike Foxconn, but it's not the same as the middle-class building that Ford did.
Re:he's not a modern day Henry Ford (Score:5, Interesting)
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In America, in 2010, there's a waiting list to work at McDonald's.
Is that what makes McDonald's a great employer?
there absolutely is a waiting list (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, you almost have to bribe someone to get a job interview!
There isn't really multi-week training, you are put on easier lines first and work up to your aptitude.
But just because there's a line to get in doesn't mean there's any job security. When things slow down, you simply aren't brought back next week.
When you get too old for the dextrous work or your fingers grow to be too large to do some work (because their lines are virtually all 16-20 year old women) or merely when someone else will do the job cheaper because they are younger, you are out on your ear.
Like I said, I don't hate Foxconn. But it's not the same as Ford where he employed workers long term and invested in their development.
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Please, Please. Please read about Henry Ford.
He did not invent the assembly line.
He did figure out that by paying a bit more and helping with education and health he ended up with a lower turnover which helped his bottom line.
Of course that made more profit for him too so no doubt that makes him evil in your eyes.
TANSTAAFL
Re:he's not a modern day Henry Ford (Score:5, Insightful)
He did figure out that by paying a bit more and helping with education and health he ended up with a lower turnover which helped his bottom line.
Of course that made more profit for him too so no doubt that makes him evil in your eyes.
What's weird is that modern-day capitalists haven't figured this out yet (that turnover kills profit). You think it'd be self-evident, or that they could at least look at what Ford did, but no, they mistreat their workers, create crappy working environments, suffer from high turnover, and then sit around and bitch about it but do nothing to fix it.
Re:he's not a modern day Henry Ford (Score:5, Informative)
From http://cafehayek.com/2010/08/fording-the-gorge-between-fiction-and-fact.html [cafehayek.com]:
Re:he's not a modern day Henry Ford (Score:5, Informative)
Ford wanted his workers to have a living wage, to be able to afford the products they made.
That may be the public messaging/myth, but closer analysis shows that Ford simply wanted to reduce turnover [adamsmith.org], and also to increase productivity by linking the wage increase to learning English, as well as their steering clear of alcohol and gambling (monitored in workers homes, no less...)
Moreover, Ford did not employ enough workers for their wage hike to have a significant impact on his own sales.
That said, wages in China are rising, cutting Flextronics' [bloomberg.com] profits and forcing Foxconn to move more factories away from the high-cost coastal areas of China.
Foxconn doubled base-wages for employees in Shenzhen in June, where it has around half its 900,000 workers, but said it would cut the headcount there by about 170,000 over five years.
Foxconn doesn't want to reduce turnover (Score:2)
They have more applicants than they need.
And what do you think happens when they get their new plant near Chongqing up and running?
Line workers will not be transferred to the new location, they will simply lose their jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Defamation of character. (Score:2)
Plus (Score:2)
the US isn't a corrupt 3rd world country that you can bribe epople to get your way.
Yes, yes sometime it happens. But in the US if a public employee gets got with a few thousand dollars in his refrigerator, it's a big deal. I his country it's SOP.
He's just using the over blown everyone sues republican media crap as an excuse.
And Ford he is NOT.
Re:Plus (Score:5, Insightful)
the US isn't a corrupt 3rd world country that you can bribe epople to get your way.
True...we're a first world country where you can have lobbyists bribe people for you to get your way instead.
He has a point about lawyers (Score:2, Insightful)
Gou has a very good point about why manufacturing in the US is not feasible.
The moment a company becomes successful, there are lawyers lined up to look for any way they can sue to get a piece of the pie without working for it. If the lawyers fail, the government is next in line to punish the success of the company in the name of "economic justice."
America used to be the land of opportunity, but now there are so many barriers to success, one almost has to go to another country to have any chance.
Re: (Score:2)
I feel like I end up saying this a lot on Slashdot, but you do know Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, right?
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, amazingly, none of the other first world countries seem to be attracting new business like the US does. Oh, sure, Ireland was a nice place, but then the tax-free-ride started to slip and everybody shifted. Eastern Europe was great, until jobs were being created, and then the price of labor started to go up and the quality - it turned out - really wasn't all that great.
America has a fairly well educated labor force (not great, but passible), moderate tax structure - and corporations can hide much of
Re:He has a point about lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
USA still has _great_ climate for business. There's no VAT, _very_ low taxes for a first-world country, fairly simple financial accounting rules, etc.
Contrary to the believes that Obama somehow makes USA unfit for business, it's still quite attractive to do business there.
However, the piece about lawyers is true. I'm a co-owner of a fairly small US company, and we've already spent more on lawyers then on rent for our offices. I also live in Ukraine and I own a company here, and so far I've spent less than $1000 on lawyers' fees.
Pot meet kettle. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
In one part of the article it talks about him involved in a libel suit over the suicide reports
Good point.
It wasn't actually over the suicide reports, but over an earlier article on "working conditions." A personal libel suit against the journalists and a court order freezing their assets.
PR (Score:5, Informative)
"Finally, Gou's company hired the New York firm Burson-Marsteller to help devise a formal public-relations strategy, its first in more than 35 years of existence."
The concept of a company with almost 1M people without a PR strategy is refreshing, but reflecting a little bit more, what that also means is: now anything that we say about the employee suicides, even this, is being carefully managed.
Too many lawyers? Or too many laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
I worry America has too many lawyers. I don't want to spend time having people sue me every day.
99% of what goes on in those lawsuits is righteous protection of workers and customers from the bad or evil decisions of managers.
The other 1% is still covered by your insurance, Terry.
Your problem isn't too many lawyers (you just get your own lawyers and then it doesn't take up your time), your problem is there are laws that will keep you from doing things in ways that you deserve to be sued for.
But I'm sure your deployment of nets to catch suicidal employees is a tacit expression of your understanding that your company is somehow culpable for its own behavior and the culture it engenders in the people it aggregates to perform work that makes you an impressively rich man, hyper-impressively considering China's supposed to be a communist country... So you know that you're either doing something very right, or many things very wrong.
What's more expensive... (Score:2)
Paying lawyers or paying government officials off? Is there some kind of a formula for this? How do quantify gov't graft and whim?
-rt
Please, read the fine article, it's worth it (Score:5, Informative)
You'll notice that even though by western standards Foxconn has a terrible work environment, they're actually the best option for Chinese workers, who queue to work there.
Even though the salaries seem low by western standards, Foxconn pays the higher salaries in China. The article mentions several people who are there only to earn some money for a while and then go to work on a lower-paying less-stressful business.
The man himself started his huge empire with a $7500 loan. Hell, I live in Brazil and you can't even begin an auto repairshop with this money here, let alone a small manufacturing plant.
By Chinese standards, Foxconn is great and they actually seem to care about their employees more than the other Chinese companies do. None of the workers are afraid to complain and lose their jobs or anything like that and even strikes happen (and people continue employed).
Honestly, you should just enjoy your cheap electronics while you can because this isn't going to last forever as a newer generation of Chinese people is growing up (also mentioned in the article) and they will want better standards of living - no one needs to take care of them, there's more than a billion of them and they can take care of themselves.
The United states of sue you (Score:5, Insightful)
overseas the workplace does not need to pay health (Score:3, Informative)
over seas the work place does not need to pay for worker health-care. That what the USA needs no more Health care tied to the work place.
We read day in day about US litigation ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oracle sues Google.
Netapp sues Sun,
Apple sues Nokia.
Nokia sues Apple.
SCO sues IBM, Novell, my aunt and your granny.
And lets not forget Amazon's "one click"....
and that is only IT for starters.
Almost daily we have news about frivolous lawsuits related to patents (software patents!) and copyright.
You may want to say whatever you want about this guy, but please don't tell me he does not have a point to make .....
Makes complete sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
His comment about the uselessness of business degrees is spot on. I'm convinced that American corporate over-reliance on business degrees, and marketing, are amongst the biggest problems facing American corporations.
American corporations are saddled with a bunch of business majors who, for whatever reason, have been deemed to be the best suited to manage despite the fact that they barely understand the details of what their company actually does. They haven't worked in the trenches, they haven't actually been directly involved in the product or service but they're first in line to run things. This is a far cry from Asia where engineers and designers routinely are the ones who get promoted to management positions. It ensures they can make informed decisions and employees can't get away with BS. Managers in Asia can be just as self-centered, just as concerned about the next Mercedes they're going to buy. But they're also more likely to make the best choices for the company.
The second disaster is marketing. American companies seem to have adopted the attitude that you don't actually need a good product, you simply need to convince consumers you offer one. By the time the consumer realizes they've been had you have their money. And they've risen to have such power because of stupid suits who don't have enough confidence in the strength of their product. And marketing is entirely self-serving. It doesn't matter how wasteful a marketing campaign is a marketing department/agency will find a way to skew the data to claim it was actually a success. It's rather shocking how much money companies dump into marketing especially considering how low the response rate actually is.
This is not to say there aren't other issues. The cost of labor in the US is exceedingly high, and work ethic is crap. Couple that with entitlement culture and you've got real problems. And topping it all off we've got a government that mismanages and misdirects regulation. Instead of making decisions that are best for the well-being of the nation their policies almost always seem intended to pander to special interests or push certain agendas.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Making the LOSER pay for all lawsuit costs. This will, overnight, end all frivolus lawsuits.
It will also end all valid suits, where the plaintiff doesn't want to risk a multi-million dollar bill should he fail.
All damages should be capped at about $10,000
Making it quite profitable to rip people off for more than $10K.
3. Disband ALL unions *by force*.
Yes, let's end the right to peaceably assemble and force our workers into involuntary servitude. That's the American way.
Only by doing AT LEAST these three
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"If some stupid old lady spills lukewarm coffee into her lap, she should NOT get a billion dollars in damages."
Third degree burns on 6% of her body, lesser burns on a further 16% of her body (that is almost a quarter of her body burned), 8 days in hospital, a skin graft and 2 years of further medical care is far from frivolous. I'd argue that any beverage that has the potential to cause injuries serious enough to require a skin graft is slightly beyond "lukewarm".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDo [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)