Foxconn workers protest over pay and lockdowns at iPhone factory in China

Protests have erupted at Foxconn, the largest contract supplier for Apple's iPhone, as workers voice complaints over pay and working conditions following new draconian COVID-19 measures. According to multiple reports and social media posts, hundreds of protesters gathered at the company's massive facility in Zhengzhou, China, …

[Auntie Dix]

Slave Unrest Will Delay the Latest Apple Products

It is about time that large outdoor projection screens in China's factory cities broadcast Chinese-subtitled get-back-to-work messages from Tim Cook.

With his other face, via worldwide media, Tim Cook may apologize to Apple customers about a slight delay in product shipment. No need to mention the slaves.

[Potemkine!]

You're not paid to think, shut up and do your job

It is not possible to be an unhappy worker in a communist society, because communist society is a dictatorship of the working class.

Therefore, workers claiming to be unhappy are either traitors and/or insane, and will be treated as such.

== Bring us Dabbsy back! ==

[DS999]

Re: You're not paid to think, shut up and do your job

China hasn't been communist for several decades. It is basically a highly authoritarian crony capitalist state, with the people in charge in government choosing the winners and losers alongside the market - while lining their own pockets of course. Basically Trump's wet dream if he had been emperor instead of president and congress and the constitution didn't limit his power.

There is almost nothing of communism left except the name, but it is about as communist today as North Korea is "democratic" or "people's republic".

[Youngone]

Re: You're not paid to think, shut up and do your job

Weirdly, there are people who still think communists were the bad guys, and our side are the good guys.

I know.

[imanidiot]

Re: You're not paid to think, shut up and do your job

Given the millions upon millions of dead, yes, the communists were (and are) the bad guys. Doesn't make the shadow-oligarchs running the western world the good guys though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You're not paid to think, shut up and do your job

Xi Jinping believes he's a communist - you're free to go there and tell him he's wrong, and he's a crony capitalist...

[DS999]

Re: You're not paid to think, shut up and do your job

Really, you talked to him behind closed doors where he is free to say what he really thinks? Thought not.

A lot of politicians will make public statements they know are not true because they know it is what their people want/expect/need/are used to hearing.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Rights?

In China? Thanks for the laugh, Reg. I'll be smiling all day about that The only "rights" a Communist subject has is the right to be executed for not doing what you're told to do. And, in China, your family will be made to pay for the bullets used.

[steviebuk]

Apple and Tim Apple

Apple and Tim Apple should be ashamed.

They give no shits about China's poor human rights issues.

[Zolko]

Re: Apple and Tim Apple

There is a logical fallacy here : since they don't give a damn shit about human rights, why should they be ashamed about their slave worker's living conditions ? For Apple, everything is going along the plan.

[Lordrobot]

Meanwhile in virtue signaling Murica...

Walmart Manager blows away six colleagues in a Virginia USA Walmart store employee lunch room. See story page 26...

[Securitymoose]

Close the factory? Bring the work back to less oppressive countries? Don't buy Apple phones anymore?

I'm as guilty as the next man (he's called Bruce), in touting an Apple phone - sorry. When it comes to replacement, I'll be looking at alternatives if they haven't done something to improve human condition at their factories. I'm sure it's starting to happen anyway. How many of you readers have bought an iPhone 13?

[Steve Button]

Re: Close the factory? Bring the work back to less oppressive countries? Don't buy Apple

Fairphone then?

Because all the "alternatives" are just as bad as far as I'm aware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Close the factory? Bring the work back to less oppressive countries? Don't buy Apple

Interesting, where are they made then? As long as it doesn't run Android that could offer an alternative.

(in case you're reading the article, click through to the source in there and note that the software was uploaded despite the device being data disabled by the user - no idea how that is possible but it makes you think)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Close the factory? Bring the work back to less oppressive countries? Don't buy Apple

I've spent time in South Korean factories. The bottom level workers work a lot - typically 12 hour shifts with 1 day off a month. However, they've got free lunch, reasonable homes in tower blocks, education, and health. They got through COVID without beating up factory workers.

In one factory I was in they also hired women, as a group, from China, who worked together, as a group (50-100) to supplement the native workforce. Seems like they were getting better treatment than they would at Foxconn.

I believe there is no issue with slave labor and Samsung. As far as security - I don't use banking apps on a phone, etc. Zero trust.

[Obseedian]

Everybody needs to chill out; Klaus said this is the model for other nations to follow.

[DenTheMan]

We don't need no religion..

.when fake communism is far more corrupt.

Real communism survives a full 10 minutes.

[IamAProton]

CCP is scared

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1_riZCdSGI (first few minutes)

Look at the huge amount of police they are moving there to prevent the protest growing bigger.

In china any protest (even if against the 'evil' west' gets stopped before grows too big because they are afraid of turning against the lefties at the government; in this case it's mostly against Foxconn/ local government which usually takes the blame despite following orders from the top.

[Filippo]

Re: CCP is scared

I'm not sure you can call the Chinese government "lefties". There's literally just one party, and it doesn't look much like any left (or right) party in democractic countries. It's got "communist" in the name, but, well, if I call myself a tree I won't sprout leaves.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: CCP is scared

When has there ever been a Communist government then? After the revolution, but before the dust settles, it inevitably becomes an authoritarian state. However, within democracies socialism and capitalism generally coexist to some extent.

[Filippo]

Re: CCP is scared

Uhm, okay? I'm not sure how it relates to my post, but that's all correct. I've no idea if or when there's been a true communist government, and I wasn't particularly thinking about it either. I just don't think the CCP looks anything like Western left parties.

[imanidiot]

Re: CCP is scared

Oh get lost with your "no true communist" crap. That way millions of deaths lie. They're ALL murderous authoritarian hellholes because that is what communism inevitably and inexorably devolves into.

[Richard 12]

Re: CCP is scared

They may have been genuinely communist for a few years in the beginning, but they have always become corrupt dictatorships very rapidly.

Probably because post-revolution, there is a single party of the most violent revolutionaries in charge. That is only semi-stable by ensuring the upper echelons are given plenty of gold and the rest suppressed.

Ref. Napoleon, Stalin etc.

Communism as a concept only works in small groups, up to perhaps a hundred people, as it can only operate when everyone knows everyone else. However, such a commune has to trade, as there are many things that a small group cannot possibly manufacture/grow.

And trading is capitalism.

Unfettered capitalism doesn't work either of course. It begets a revolution when the disparity between rich and poor becomes too great.

[Winkypop]

How dare the workers complain!

Send Elon in immediately.

No more complaints / no more workers.

[Dave@Home]

"technical error occurred during the onboarding process."

Our onboarding process screws up and someone can't get a login for a day, fk that

[cookieMonster]

WTF !!!!

The actual story is the LAST PARAGRAPH !!!!

Holy shit, apple actually did that??

[Plest]

When people are running from your factory like it's a breakout from "Stalag Luft 111b", climbing barbed wire fences in the middle of the night to get away from you and your workplace, then I'm afraid something has gone terribly wrong!

[wobball]

Not buying the new shiny white thing every one or two years would be a good start, sheeple!

I run a circa 10 yr old fat iMac n Moto G4 without missing out on much I need tho a better camera will eventually cause me to go get summit and, yes, I sniff my own farts!

On a serious note, this truly shows Apple up in the light it deserves.

They could, of course, choose to make their shiz somewhere slightly less profitable but, cos of, won't.