5 ms·

Wistron’s Apple factory in India committed serious violations of labour laws

29 points by bongoman37 6y ago

randomly123 6y ago
Undoubtedly so. A lot of Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers expanding into India need to know that Indian labour is inexpensive and talented but they are very conscious of their rights as workers. Labour is usually unionized and conscious of their rights.
- Karishma1234 6y ago
  What does this mean ? How is rioting and destroying property "being aware of your rights" ? This is pure thuggery.
CivBase 6y ago
As Louis Rossman pointed out in a couple recent videos, Apple seems to keep themselves intentionally naive about their manufacturing partners' labor practices in order to retain plausible deniability. We should expect better from such a huge and wealthy company.
- olliej 6y ago
  It's strange to say that, when Apple is literally the only tech company that audits (including random audits) their manufacturers factories for working conditions and labor code violations.
  - ladyanita22 6y ago
    Well apparently their methods don't work very well.
  - CivBase 6y ago
    This problem is not exclusive to Apple and we should expect better from many other tech companies as well. And apparently Apple's audits are insufficient if this kind of stuff is happening.
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      If we cared about this stuff, we would require our government to do something about it... Don't want child miners in the Congo making cobalt for your iPhone? We could pressure apple not to buy that cobalt... but then some other company will buy it instead - cobalt is a fungible resource. We could pressure the US government not to allow that cobalt be imported... but then some other country will buy it - after all, cobalt is fungible... The only solution is to force the Congolese government to work to prevent the behaviour we don't like. That would involve aid conditional on the issue being resolved, or sanctions if the issue is not resolved. It's the only way that works. Trying to shame companies into cleaning up their acts only works with companies with a reputation to uphold, and fungible resources mean the bad actors can always sell to companies or countries that don't care about this stuff.
      - baybal2 6y ago
        An alternative to Apple using cobalt from Congo is Apple using cobalt from Cuba, Russia, Iran, and China itself, a perfect quadriga. And Apple works as one huge lobbying company on behalf of Chinese state, interfering on any USG attempt at tackling Chinese political influence in US. You may think of how Apple may have monetary incentive to lobby for China against anti-slavery laws, but you cannot conceivably imagine why in the world Apple lobbies for laxer campaign financing rules, and against stricter rules against foreign campaign donations. The only way to solve the Apple issue, is make it cease its existence as a business. If US don't kill the Apple it surrenders this option to the enemy. For as long as Apple has such enormous incentives for continuing being amicable with communists to continue its existence, they will continue to lobby for them.
        amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        The word “communist” seems to have lost all meaning, and China isn’t an enemy of the US. Rival might be a better word.
      - CivBase 6y ago
        This isn't about sourcing raw materials, though. This is about sourcing manufacturing labor.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Karishma1234 6y ago
Indian here. This must be taken with a boatload of salt. India's labor law is cryptic, deeply socialistic and favors unions over actual businesses in weird ways. Also, it is mostly unenforceable with lot of discretion to government officials in this particular case "Department of Factories, Boilers, Industrial Safety and Health". Trust their inspectors to be clueless and they add zero value. They mostly show up to collect their bribes and you are free to do whatever it wants. These things change when employees unionize under the leadership of local goons and corrupt politicians and start acting as rent seekers rather than workers. Winstorm is not an angel and high chance they must have engaged in lot of labor law violation, but it is plain idiotic to think that they would do something too worse than other factories in India. If at all my money is on the fact that Winstorm factory is actually better one available to these workers and these workers should be thankful for having some job in first place. Looking at the sad salary numbers Winstorm does not save any money by underpaying employees or asking them to work more hours. It is a new factory and perhaps still in the process of getting everything in order. What Indian labor did there is nothing short of ungrateful behavior that has increased the risk for all other companies to come and start factories in India. Today it is winstorm tomorrow it could be your factory. Indian government's track record on worksplace practices and safety is pretty poor. Indian government's policies caused one of the worst industrial disasters of all times (Bhopal Gas tragedy). Government then shamelessly blamed it on American company Union Carbide and then passed laws to ensure no victim can get compensation from Union Carbide directly. Indian government then pocked something like $100M by today's value a lot of victims did not get a single penny.

29 points by bongoman37 6y ago

Undoubtedly so. A lot of Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers expanding into India need to know that Indian labour is inexpensive and talented but they are very conscious of their rights as workers. Labour is usually unionized and conscious of their rights.

Karishma1234 6y ago
What does this mean ? How is rioting and destroying property "being aware of your rights" ? This is pure thuggery.

CivBase 6y ago

As Louis Rossman pointed out in a couple recent videos, Apple seems to keep themselves intentionally naive about their manufacturing partners' labor practices in order to retain plausible deniability. We should expect better from such a huge and wealthy company.

olliej 6y ago
It's strange to say that, when Apple is literally the only tech company that audits (including random audits) their manufacturers factories for working conditions and labor code violations.
- ladyanita22 6y ago
  Well apparently their methods don't work very well.
- CivBase 6y ago
  This problem is not exclusive to Apple and we should expect better from many other tech companies as well. And apparently Apple's audits are insufficient if this kind of stuff is happening.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    If we cared about this stuff, we would require our government to do something about it... Don't want child miners in the Congo making cobalt for your iPhone? We could pressure apple not to buy that cobalt... but then some other company will buy it instead - cobalt is a fungible resource. We could pressure the US government not to allow that cobalt be imported... but then some other country will buy it - after all, cobalt is fungible... The only solution is to force the Congolese government to work to prevent the behaviour we don't like. That would involve aid conditional on the issue being resolved, or sanctions if the issue is not resolved. It's the only way that works. Trying to shame companies into cleaning up their acts only works with companies with a reputation to uphold, and fungible resources mean the bad actors can always sell to companies or countries that don't care about this stuff.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      An alternative to Apple using cobalt from Congo is Apple using cobalt from Cuba, Russia, Iran, and China itself, a perfect quadriga. And Apple works as one huge lobbying company on behalf of Chinese state, interfering on any USG attempt at tackling Chinese political influence in US. You may think of how Apple may have monetary incentive to lobby for China against anti-slavery laws, but you cannot conceivably imagine why in the world Apple lobbies for laxer campaign financing rules, and against stricter rules against foreign campaign donations. The only way to solve the Apple issue, is make it cease its existence as a business. If US don't kill the Apple it surrenders this option to the enemy. For as long as Apple has such enormous incentives for continuing being amicable with communists to continue its existence, they will continue to lobby for them.
      - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
        The word “communist” seems to have lost all meaning, and China isn’t an enemy of the US. Rival might be a better word.
    - CivBase 6y ago
      This isn't about sourcing raw materials, though. This is about sourcing manufacturing labor.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Karishma1234 6y ago

Indian here. This must be taken with a boatload of salt. India's labor law is cryptic, deeply socialistic and favors unions over actual businesses in weird ways. Also, it is mostly unenforceable with lot of discretion to government officials in this particular case "Department of Factories, Boilers, Industrial Safety and Health". Trust their inspectors to be clueless and they add zero value. They mostly show up to collect their bribes and you are free to do whatever it wants. These things change when employees unionize under the leadership of local goons and corrupt politicians and start acting as rent seekers rather than workers. Winstorm is not an angel and high chance they must have engaged in lot of labor law violation, but it is plain idiotic to think that they would do something too worse than other factories in India. If at all my money is on the fact that Winstorm factory is actually better one available to these workers and these workers should be thankful for having some job in first place. Looking at the sad salary numbers Winstorm does not save any money by underpaying employees or asking them to work more hours. It is a new factory and perhaps still in the process of getting everything in order. What Indian labor did there is nothing short of ungrateful behavior that has increased the risk for all other companies to come and start factories in India. Today it is winstorm tomorrow it could be your factory. Indian government's track record on worksplace practices and safety is pretty poor. Indian government's policies caused one of the worst industrial disasters of all times (Bhopal Gas tragedy). Government then shamelessly blamed it on American company Union Carbide and then passed laws to ensure no victim can get compensation from Union Carbide directly. Indian government then pocked something like $100M by today's value a lot of victims did not get a single penny.