5 ms·

Lol. Taiwanese, Japanese and Chinese corporates will find that despite India today having the most corporate friendly PM in India's history, Indian workers are

Lol. Taiwanese, Japanese and Chinese corporates will find that despite India today having the most corporate friendly PM in India's history, Indian workers are not submissive. Apart from being quite politically aware, India also has large and powerful labour unions that were actually encouraged by past governments to not only protect labour rights but also as a check on corporates (India was enslaved by a corporate and thus understood - yes, past-tense because the current PM is a duffer here - the dangers of giving corporates a free run). Ofcourse, American media will only focus on "loss" to the corporates (as this headline also highlights). The depressing reality is that the workers were pushed into such a drastic step by their corporate overlords. > "While an engineering graduate was promised Rs 21,000 ($286) per month, his/her salary had reduced to Rs 16,000 ($218) and, subsequently, to Rs 12,000 ($163) in the recent months. Non-engineering graduates' monthly salary had reduced to Rs 8,000 ($109). The salary amount being credited to our accounts have been reducing and it was frustrating to see this." Some workers claim to have gotten monthly salaries of as little as Rs 500 ($6.80). I also remember reading elsewhere that despite the pay cuts, they were sometimes also forced to work even overtime to meet Apple's x-mas demands for iPhones.

MichaelZuo 6y ago
How influential and trustworthy are the labour unions nowadays in India?
- ashneo76 6y ago
  How influential and trustworthy are corporate and governments in China, US etc.
  - MichaelZuo 6y ago
    I was asking a genuine question, I imagine very few people outside of India know anything about the situation there, to actually have a honest discussion would require discussing that. Without the background on the relative strengths of these organizations mentioned by the poster, we cannot assess what the poster wrote.
    - dirtyid 6y ago
      Strong enough, AKA more than zero. India is attempting to do an Asian Tiger FDI development model as a democracy in the age of social media where political organization is easy. Reality is, _zero_ countries have totally developed under democracy. Ever. Modern India is the first to attempt. You need a certain level of authoritarian / state controlled industrial policy and violent enforcement initially to entice FDI with stability. Conditions and bargaining power naturally improves after gaining increasing leverage once investors has commited sufficient sunk cost + creating supply chain inertia. Democracy and corporate/colonial trauma has caused India to squandered many opportunities to industrialize due to lack of infrastructure, redtape bureaucracy and grassroots organization. Meanwhile, increasing complexity in manufacturing mean instead of abusing peasants you're abusing engineers with professional degrees. Automation is around the corner, India doesn't have many chances left. Their trump card is potential market size and tariffs, but that's predicated on actually developing enough consumers to middle-income in the first place. It's a bad hand.
      - areoform 6y ago
        > Reality is, _zero_ countries have totally developed under democracy. Ever. Modern India is the first to attempt. Zero countries other than, post-WWII West Germany (and then re-unified Germany) under the Marshall plan. The US of A, Canada, the UK post-WWII's devastation etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_and_economic_growth#Effects_of_democracy_on_economic_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_and_economic_growth#... There is a strong correlation between democracy and long-term political growth, > Democratization of a country from a non-democratic regime is usually preceded by a fall in GDP, and a volatile but expected growth in the long run, While on the other hand authoritarian regimes experience significant growth at the beginning and decline in the long run.[4] The cause of such behavior is that non-democratic regimes, mainly authoritarian ones, are more effective at implementing decisive policies and choices as well as solving ethnic and sub-national conflicts, but are unsustainable in the long run as there is more incentive to extract money from society which in turn leads to less prosperity.[5] Democratic regimes revolve around institutions and policies which lay the foundations, through which principles of liberty and equality are designed and followed, thus directly or indirectly affecting firms or individuals who benefit from the directives and increase their growth, which in turn has a positive impact on economy. However, I'd like to add that the reason why democracies work in the long-run is that all the good ideas, the transformational ones come from the margin. Authoritarian countries simply do not create systems where anyone other than a small group of ruling elite is able to bring their work to fruition. Whereas democratic policies and a lower social extraction leads to a strong consumer base in democracies, which in turn allows ideas from the margins to thrive.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Strong enough to have a massive protest in favor of communism a few weeks ago.
mgh2 6y ago
It is funny how I seldom see these articles become relevant either in HN or mainstream media, issues like these always get buried in favor of hype. As long as people get their Apple magic, nothing else matters...
- webmobdev 6y ago
  While Reddit has a definite left bend, HN is more economically right-leaning - that shouldn't be surprising as HN is run by capitalists who invest in startups and risky new ventures.

MichaelZuo 6y ago

How influential and trustworthy are the labour unions nowadays in India?

ashneo76 6y ago
How influential and trustworthy are corporate and governments in China, US etc.
- MichaelZuo 6y ago
  I was asking a genuine question, I imagine very few people outside of India know anything about the situation there, to actually have a honest discussion would require discussing that. Without the background on the relative strengths of these organizations mentioned by the poster, we cannot assess what the poster wrote.
  - dirtyid 6y ago
    Strong enough, AKA more than zero. India is attempting to do an Asian Tiger FDI development model as a democracy in the age of social media where political organization is easy. Reality is, _zero_ countries have totally developed under democracy. Ever. Modern India is the first to attempt. You need a certain level of authoritarian / state controlled industrial policy and violent enforcement initially to entice FDI with stability. Conditions and bargaining power naturally improves after gaining increasing leverage once investors has commited sufficient sunk cost + creating supply chain inertia. Democracy and corporate/colonial trauma has caused India to squandered many opportunities to industrialize due to lack of infrastructure, redtape bureaucracy and grassroots organization. Meanwhile, increasing complexity in manufacturing mean instead of abusing peasants you're abusing engineers with professional degrees. Automation is around the corner, India doesn't have many chances left. Their trump card is potential market size and tariffs, but that's predicated on actually developing enough consumers to middle-income in the first place. It's a bad hand.
    - areoform 6y ago
      > Reality is, _zero_ countries have totally developed under democracy. Ever. Modern India is the first to attempt. Zero countries other than, post-WWII West Germany (and then re-unified Germany) under the Marshall plan. The US of A, Canada, the UK post-WWII's devastation etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_and_economic_growth#Effects_of_democracy_on_economic_growth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_and_economic_growth#... There is a strong correlation between democracy and long-term political growth, > Democratization of a country from a non-democratic regime is usually preceded by a fall in GDP, and a volatile but expected growth in the long run, While on the other hand authoritarian regimes experience significant growth at the beginning and decline in the long run.[4] The cause of such behavior is that non-democratic regimes, mainly authoritarian ones, are more effective at implementing decisive policies and choices as well as solving ethnic and sub-national conflicts, but are unsustainable in the long run as there is more incentive to extract money from society which in turn leads to less prosperity.[5] Democratic regimes revolve around institutions and policies which lay the foundations, through which principles of liberty and equality are designed and followed, thus directly or indirectly affecting firms or individuals who benefit from the directives and increase their growth, which in turn has a positive impact on economy. However, I'd like to add that the reason why democracies work in the long-run is that all the good ideas, the transformational ones come from the margin. Authoritarian countries simply do not create systems where anyone other than a small group of ruling elite is able to bring their work to fruition. Whereas democratic policies and a lower social extraction leads to a strong consumer base in democracies, which in turn allows ideas from the margins to thrive.
aaomidi 6y ago
Strong enough to have a massive protest in favor of communism a few weeks ago.

mgh2 6y ago

It is funny how I seldom see these articles become relevant either in HN or mainstream media, issues like these always get buried in favor of hype. As long as people get their Apple magic, nothing else matters...

webmobdev 6y ago
While Reddit has a definite left bend, HN is more economically right-leaning - that shouldn't be surprising as HN is run by capitalists who invest in startups and risky new ventures.