University students are being required to work for Foxconn ahead of the new iPhone launch, according to the Shanghai Daily.
Charlie Osborne
Students from a university in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province, allegedly have been forced to do assembly work at a Foxconn plant under the guise of internships, according to the Shanghai Daily.The newspaper reports that 200 students were driven to a factory run by Foxconn after the company experienced a labor shortage ahead of Apple's anticipated new iPhone, which is likely to be revealed at a September 12 press event.
Citing a student from the Huai'an Institute of Technology under the online alias MengniuIQ84, the publication writes that after working on production lines, each student was paid 1,550 yuan ($243) per month for a six-day week, 12 hours a day. However, each worker also had to pay "hundreds of yuan for food and accommodation."
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This article is the last straw. I've been mulling my stance on this issue for quite a while. Now, I've made up my mind, damn it.
ReplyDeleteI need an intern.
Comment of the week.
DeleteI detest FoxConn.
ReplyDeleteCan I send some of my students there?
ReplyDeleteThis may be a case of the Chinese borrowing American language/values (as well as producing for the American market), since unpaid internships seem increasingly to be the fate of college students and recent graduates (at least those who can afford not to earn anything, or not to earn for every hour they work; the rest are all working service/retail/hospitality jobs that don't actually require any college, pace what the employers may be able to demand).
ReplyDeleteAnd I still can't afford a smartphone (or, rather, the data plan that goes with one). It's time for the 1% to conjure up the ghost of Henry Ford for a consult, I think. I know he was pretty paternalistic in his approach to workers, and I'd prefer to avoid that, but the old "pay them enough to buy the products they produce" approach made a lot of sense.
DeleteYou're right about the increasing use of internships in America, and I think it's a troubling development. I think, though, that there's an important distinction to be made between Americans who choose to work as interns, and Chinese students who are bussed as a group to a factory and forced to work under the pretext that it's an internship.
Delete"Pay 'em enough to buy the products they produce" was, partly, a result of ol' Hank's paternalism, I think. We should all see more of that kind of paternalism, dontcha think?
DeleteThis is a corporate seizure of the old Maoist "Down to the Countryside" campaign, except it's in factories and the students get to pay for the "privilege" of making those stupid phones.
ReplyDeleteThe Chairman is rolling in his grave.
Internship Or internment???
ReplyDeleteWe're not that different. Doesn't UPS have some crazy-assed deal with the University of Louisville whereby in exchange for peonage at their sorting and packaging warehouses the company pays for night classes, etc.? Marc Bousquet wrote about it, I think.
ReplyDeleteYes, and it's a scam.
DeleteIf I'm remembering correctly, both Wal-Mart and Amazon have come up with similar, and similarly questionable, schemes. Theoretically those are real jobs, with wages, but the wages are very low, and the educational benefits questionable. Sadly, before the most recent GI bill, one could say the same about the educational benefits associated with military service. That seems to have improved a bit, but there are still restrictions (e.g. no double majors and no taking of classes that aren't strictly required for progress toward the degree, according to one of my current students who had to choose a major carefully to develop all the (much-in-demand) skills he'd like to).
Deleteone could say the same about the educational benefits associated with military service
DeleteCC, I'm out of touch with that sort of thing, but in my day veterans' education benefits were a defined-sum item. You could use them however you pleased, as long as the money went to an accredited institution (or maybe just any post-secondary institution at all) but when your defined monetary benefit was used up, it was done.
Perhaps you're talking about the benefit for serving servicemembers?