Better title: Inside Indian workers’ struggle to get basic decency and fair treatment at Foxconn factories.

most of the jokes on reddit are actually a joke.

A very insightful peek into modern factory workers hard life. I often forget that behind all political and marketing spectacle, real humans are involved.

but Reddit said India would replace China as the next manufacturing superpower!

Still blows my mind that its cheaper to throw these sweatshops up around Asia and train a workforce than it is to simply redesign the iPhone to be easily assembled by an automated assembly line. Car companies automate far large and more complicated assembly processes than a phone.

honestly why (apart from global politics) are they trying to move from China?

…put 2 iphones on a shelf…one from CN and one from INDIA and I know which one I would pick. CN is so optimised for building these devices (inc supply chain proximity), I don’t want a phone from a struggling factory.

The clash in work ethics reminds me a lot of the film American Factory. A Chinese glass manufacturer set up shop in America, they sent Chinese workers to train American workers, then complained about how “lazy” and “entitled” American workers are. Behind the scenes are workers in China being worked to death in conditions OSHA would be scared of, yet they thought it’s the norm and tried to impose it on American workers. I’d highly recommend a watch.

Very insightful article. Feel terrible for the workers, it is almost like a cyberpunk situation.

An incredibly well-written article, almost like a screenplay. Reminds me of TSMC trying to set up shop in Arizona. Of course a different type of factory obviously, but still.

A great example of the impacts of globalization and the race to the bottom.

This is exactly why a major return of manufacturing to the western world is not going to happen. International corporations and the global capitalist class have trillions invested into exploiting the arbitrage trade between cheap Asian labour markets and the rich West. Labour rights, industrial hygiene, occupational health and safety are problems to be worked around, not guardrails to stay between.

Good article. It sounds like people in the Indian factories don’t have the same work ethic. They’re not willing to kill themselves to get slightly ahead or make a bit more money. They want a more balanced work life balance. Foxconn wants slaves that work insane hours, for low pay, doing robot like repetitive work, deal with problems quickly, and take few breaks.

The reality is that the Chinese model is fucking bonkers.

But five Chinese and Taiwanese workers said they were surprised to discover that their Indian colleagues refused to work overtime. Some attributed it to a weak sense of responsibility; others to what they perceived as Indian people’s low material desire. “They are easily content,” an engineer deployed from Zhengzhou said. “They can’t handle even a bit more pressure. But if we don’t give them pressure, then we won’t be able to get everything right and move production here in a short time.”

I’m sure that the factories will get better over time but part of me wishes we didn’t have humans doing this kind of work anywhere. It’s dehumanizing.

I’m from this state and staying closs to the Factory. All the points mentioned in the article is true

1. Foxconn will never achieve their chinese efficiency here because unlike IT industries manufacturing based ones have many unions which try to fight for workers right.

2. Most of the plant assembly workers are atleast graduate. Many upwards of 80% know English and they wont be able to work 12 hours straight, as many of their peers are just working 8 to 9 hours per day in other IT industriers.

3. The pay is really low compared to lucrative IT, so most of the womens working here aged 21 - 26 won’t work here after their marriage. So you have constant pool is skilled employees leaving each year and their is a constant need to train new set of employees.

So unless makes a new strategy for their Indian factories instead of trying to replicate the same from china, these problems will remain the same

In February, following lobbying from Apple, Foxconn, and other companies, the Indian state Karnataka loosened its labor laws to allow for 12-hour work shifts, according to the Financial Times. Foxconn plans to build two new factories in the state.

Well, well, well. So, it’s the exploitive work culture that’s the main issue.

Another worker, Rajalakshmi, said her target is to inspect 526 motherboards every hour.

That’s less than 7 seconds for each motherboard. Might as well not check.