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8000 rupees per month, in Bangalore! At 160 hours, it comes to 5 rupees an hour. You can’t get even half a cup of tea for 5 bucks. This is the very definition o
by akudha 6y ago
8000 rupees per month, in Bangalore! At 160 hours, it comes to 5 rupees an hour. You can’t get even half a cup of tea for 5 bucks. This is the very definition of exploitation. These are people working for the richest company on the planet, by proxy :(
This is just depressing
Edit: it is 50 rupees per hour, not 5 (I need coffee). Leaving the error as is in the comment above.
The larger point still stands though
- netsharc 6y agoI said sardonically to a friend that with a strong authoritarian state, the protests don't occur or don't make the news, so thank you police state for our cheap gadgets. And yeah, our consumerist mindset traps us too: if faced with 2 phones of similar capabilities, 1 costs 500, 1 costs 200, which would you pick? (Even the more expensive product doesn't mean better working conditions for the factory workers, just for the Silicon Valley bug coders) Talking about exploitation, imagine condition of the miners of the minerals needed for the phones..
- Learning2-2 6y agoOn cue China made a remark after the protest in India that these protests like these would not occur in Chinese factories...
- redis_mlc 6y agoYeah, it's hard to protest after being a double-lung transplant donor.
- yorwba 6y agoThat's not entirely true. The China Labor Bulletin catalogs a few hundred strikes a year, some of which turn violent, and I guess there are many that even they don't hear about: https://maps.clb.org.hk/?i18n_language=en_US&map=1&startDate=2020-06&endDate=2020-12&eventId=&keyword=&address=&industry=&parentIndustry=&industryName=%5Bobject%20HTMLInputElement%5D https://maps.clb.org.hk/?i18n_language=en_US&map=1&startDate... E.g. yesterday "Workers protest against wage arrears of an electronic factory after managers fled, in Yancheng, Jiangsu" https://maps.clb.org.hk/?i18n_language=en_US&map=1&startDate=2020-12&endDate=2020-12&eventId=2020122117142092977&industryName=%5Bobject%20HTMLInputElement%5D https://maps.clb.org.hk/?i18n_language=en_US&map=1&startDate... The Chinese government likes to pretend that they're in control of everything and Western media doesn't tend to question that. But authoritarian crackdowns are not a surefire tactic to prevent all protests, they can just reduce their frequency (maybe).
- csharptwdec19 6y agoWhich is it's own form of dog-whistle; "Use our country; our government will help make sure the workers don't protest"
- loeg 6y ago> if faced with 2 phones of similar capabilities, 1 costs 500, 1 costs 200, which would you pick? People love to hate on Apple, but the $200 phone in your example is definitely an Android and definitely has same-or-worse manufacturing practices as Apple.
- cambalache 6y agoYou are being all over this thread defending Apple, do you have something to disclose? Even if what you say it is true, it is less immoral because at least they sell the phone damn cheap.Apple is pocketing the huge markup all by itself (And yes their shareholders, 99% of them rich people), and these Indian guys are paid 6 dollars a day.
- loeg 6y agoNo; I don't have any meaningful relationship with Apple.
- 5560675260 6y agoA better example of what OP probably meant would be $200 iPhone vs $500 Librem 5 USA.
- varispeed 6y agoThat's why it is the richest company. In this world you are unlikely going to get rich by being honest and decent.
- akudha 6y agoAre you sure about that? Companies like Costco are doing well, they seem to be better in treating their employees than say, Walmart.
- NineStarPoint 6y agoConsider that on ~40 billion revenue, Costco makes ~1 billion profit. Compare that to Apple making ~60 billion income and ~11 billion profit. Apple brings in only 1.5X more money than costco but makes 11X more profit. Sure Costco makes a lot of money, but Apple makes way more money by employing these sorts of practices. There’s rich, and then there’s apple rich.
- ceejayoz 6y agoCostco, to be fair, is a reseller. Totally different business model. They are, after all, selling Apple devices.
- hajimemash 6y agoHaha when you put it like that, it helps Apple's case. They're only making less than 10x more than Costco for all the serious technical innovation vs large-scale reselling.
- notriddle 6y agoApple doesn’t have to deal with perishables.
- gverrilla 6y agovery different business models and markets.. apple could be gigantic without this kind of manufacturing model, though. it's probably the rat race of management looking for carreer progression based on metrics and/or bonus. disgusting
- Dolores12 6y agoIf you take in account that the public company works in their shareholders best interest, i would say it is done with silent approval of shareholders. Ugly, mutated form of slavery.
- loeg 6y agoY'all are skipping the step where Apple doesn't approve of this 3rd-party manufacturer. You can't transitive that to Apple's shareholders. Shareholders -> Apple -/-> Wistron -> underpaid labor. (Edit: Wistron's shareholders? Sure. I didn't realize it was a public company or that parent comment was talking about it.)
- commonturtle 6y agoIt's quite a low wage, but not 5 rupees an hour: 8000 / 160 = 50. 50 rupees an hour is probably a decent wage in a small town / city in India, but would be a tough wage to live on in Bangalore.
- eunos 6y agoThat is around 70c USD per hour! And people say that China's laborers are paid slave wage.
- Jipazgqmnm 6y agoChina's labour-wages increase. That's why they found their new China in India.
- eunos 6y agoVietnam will be far more probable. Thanks RCEP!
- shp0ngle 6y agoApple is starting to build new factories here in Vietnam recently, yeah. Samsung already does make their phones here.
- toast0 6y agoApple assembles (some) phones in India in part to reduce tax/tarrif costs more than to reduce labor costs. Not all of the produced phones will be sold in India, but a lot of them will, and I think the exported ones will still count toward quotas for reduced tarrifs.
- blackoil 6y agoIt is not in Bangalore, but a small town near Bangalore. So 8000 for non-engineering role seems consistent with market rates.
- wolfretcrap 6y ago>Edit: it is 50 rupees per hour, not 5 (I need coffee). Leaving the error as is in the comment above. The larger point still stands though If better opportunity existed for them they'd be doing that. Since better doesn't exist, don't take away whatever exists for them for now.
- fakedang 6y ago> Since better doesn't exist, don't take away whatever exists for them for now LOL, isn't that what Wistron, and by proxy Apple, is doing to them? Taking whatever exists for them already?
- Jipazgqmnm 6y agoAt least, they don't get thirsty while working ...
- koonsolo 6y agoI never really understand the exploitation argument. If I offer you $1 an hour and you agree, is it exploitation then? Maybe if you demand $6 I just go somewhere else. And maybe if I offer $1 you go somewhere else. The point is that the job market is also a market with supply and demand. If we can agree on a price, why is it exploitation?
- crumbshot 6y agoIt's exploitation because of the imbalance of power. This is also why unions exist, to try to redress that imbalance via collective action.
- akudha 6y agoLets say I am injured and urgently need medical attention and you are the only doctor that I have access to. You quote your price which is signing away all my wealth to you, immediately. I have no choice but to agree. Is that fair? That is an extreme example, to get the point across. These workers didn't agree to your offer of $1 out of choice, they agreed because they have no other option. This is where governments need to step in and create laws and regulations so a small group of people do not screw the majority of the population. We do not live in a jungle where the strong survive the weak starve. Not everything should be tied to supply and demand. A huge portion of jobs done by humans today will be done by robots soon (for example, truck driving). What happens then? You don't pay even that $1, because you don't even need humans at that point to drive your trucks. You just let millions of truck drivers starve? These are not pure economics problems, these are societal problems. If not handled correctly and early, we'd have bloody revolutions on our hands.
- ksec 6y agoThose salary dont make any sense. I suspect there are something going on with contractors and Winstron.