A Night at the Foxconn Factory

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The New York Times is featuring an article that chronicles a night shift at Foxconn’s factory. For those of you wondering, he made it the whole night (didn’t die or commit suicide) and the experience seemed tame compared to the stories that have been published so far.

Mr. Yuan earns about 75 cents an hour. With overtime premiums, he takes home $235 a month. His rent is about $44 a month, plus $7 for water and electricity, and there are quite a few other expenses, but he said he manages to save about 40 percent.
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Damn, even many well-paid Americans can't save 40%. And I wish my water and power were $7. Sounds like things aren't quite as bad, financially speaking, as people make them out to be. $235 goes a long way in China. People look at their wages and compare them to American cost of living, which isn't really a logical comparison.

China would still suck ass to live in, but mostly for the fact of the Great Firewall.
 
Just as U.S. would be a suck ass place to live in if you only made $235 a month. It's all a matter of perspective.
 
$235 seems little, but remember the 1 US dollar = 6.8267 Chinese yuan exchange rate is artificially low.

When I convert the value back, it is 1600 yuan per month, or 19,200 yuan per year. A person in China that earns 20k yuan/year can afford an equal or better standard of living than a person in the US that earns 20k USD/year. I've traveled to China more than a few times, and prices there is basically the same as prices here except you replace USD with yuan, with the exceptions being brand name stuff made for export. Those items are pretty expensive, in fact more so than here even after conversion.
 
NKDietrich said:
Damn, even many well-paid Americans can't save 40%. And I wish my water and power were $7. Sounds like things aren't quite as bad, financially speaking, as people make them out to be. $235 goes a long way in China. People look at their wages and compare them to American cost of living, which isn't really a logical comparison.

China would still suck ass to live in, but mostly for the fact of the Great Firewall.
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That's what I was thinking too... The rent is only $44 a month. My rent is nearly 50% of what I earn, then add electricity, Internet, cell phone/mobile Internet, TV, landline phone, insurance, commuter rail pass etc. and there isn't much at all left for other things. I've managed to save maybe 10% in a good month. Of course those people probably work twice as many hours, which would be very tiring.
 
While I'm sure none of us would like to work in those conditions I don't think anyone is being forced to work there. The guy in the article moved in from the countryside to make more money in the factory to have a better life. It's not a perfect situation, but the world is far from perfect. China has come a long way from the days of Mao for sure.
 
overthetop said:
Just as U.S. would be a suck ass place to live in if you only made $235 a month. It's all a matter of perspective.
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lol apparently you don't live in kentucky..well actually it is a suck ass place to live.
 
Guy has to work mad overtime and blow a whole months savings to buy one of the man thousands he helps make in the course of that month. Wild wacky stuff.
 
It's the overtime part that gets me. Remember,that $235 a month is for 12 hours a day,six days a week! A grind like that over an extended period could drive anyone crazy!
 
michael.pa2 said:
It's the overtime part that gets me. Remember,that $235 a month is for 12 hours a day,six days a week! A grind like that over an extended period could drive anyone crazy!
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People have worked longer and harder then that on a regular basis for almost the entirety of human history.
 
michael.pa2 said:
It's the overtime part that gets me. Remember,that $235 a month is for 12 hours a day,six days a week! A grind like that over an extended period could drive anyone crazy!
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For factory work, I agree 100%. It's monotonous and dull. The hours though are not quite exceptional. Even regular office workers put in well more than 40 hours a week quite often and it's forced in the sense that if you wish to keep your job, you work. My girlfriend and her coworkers have not had a day off in almost a month, it is the busy time of year at her job. She starts at 5am or 7am and if there are meetings she may not leave work until 8 or 9. Next week she is supposed to get some rest time, which means half a day work and half rest. There is a better than even chance she will be called into work for something during that time and a 100% chance she will get calls from the office during her 'rest'. She earns 1600-2000rmb/month. No lie, she is a much tougher person than I am. I would be quite unhappy if I were in her shoes but she just shrugs it off. None of her coworkers have leaped off of a building.
 
Nemesis999 said:
People have worked longer and harder then that on a regular basis for almost the entirety of human history.
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Yeah when you think about it we don't actually get to live and enjoy much of a life. We spend so much of it being wage slaves.
 
Yuan Yandong, 24, sits on a stool six nights a week, 12 hours a night barring meal and bathroom breaks, and assembles computer hard drives for an American company
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He places two plastic chips inside the drive’s casing, inserts a device that redirects light in the drive and then fastens four screws with an electric screwdriver before sending the drive down the line. He has exactly one minute to complete the multistep task.
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no MP3 players are allowed.
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“If you do the same thing all day long you can become numb,” he said. “But I’ve gotten used to doing this type of work.”
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Until a few months ago, he lived in northern China, where he grew up on a farm and worked at a local hotel after finishing middle school.
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Mr. Yuan does not complain. This is his job, he says, and for now he’s comfortable doing it.
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Oddly, he says he is not aware of a law that limits overtime work to 36 hours a month (a law that many factories in southern China ignore). He often works more than twice that. When big orders come in, for instance, he says he can be told to work longer. And if his team members don’t meet the daily quota, they are asked to keep working.
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But factories like Foxconn have a high rate of turnover. A new generation may be tiring of the monotony. Mr. Yuan, for example, says he is not content to be a factory worker for long.
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Professor Luo says that the pressure can be intense and that workers are treated like machines at some factories.
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tl;dr

I used to fix cell phones; day after, day, week after week, of fixing the same phone in the same exact way every 8 minutes. After the first few months of finding it interesting to take phones apart and make them work, the constant repetition is so unfulfilling that you feel dead inside as you toil away. I couldn't imagine just putting two chips and some screws into the same hard drive every minute for a 12 hour shift, 6 days a week without going insane and probably offing myself, especially if you knew you were stuck there for the foreseeable future, lacking other opportunities.
 
NKDietrich said:
Damn, even many well-paid Americans can't save 40%. And I wish my water and power were $7. Sounds like things aren't quite as bad, financially speaking, as people make them out to be. $235 goes a long way in China. People look at their wages and compare them to American cost of living, which isn't really a logical comparison.

China would still suck ass to live in, but mostly for the fact of the Great Firewall.
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actually not a long way, you can't survive with that kind of money
 
Greenstuffs said:
actually not a long way, you can't survive with that kind of money
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as an earlier poster has pointed out, the exchange rate is artificially low. most items in china cost as much rmb (currency in china) as items in america cost dollars.

e.g. if a muffin costs 1 dollar here, it costs roughly 1rmb there.

just look at the guy's rent. 44usd is equivalent to roughly 300rmb. he lives with his girlfriend, so assuming that rent is split two ways, that's a 600 rmb apartment. $600 for an apartment next to a factory seems pretty reasonable here in the u.s.
 
Fuck that shit. The whole world is fucked up. We are not living in a natural rythm at all. Common sense is less and less of the equation each year. China is the USA in 10 years. Already happening in some instances. No days off for a month? For $2000 a month? FUCK THAT!

Quit paying the CEOs silly $$$. The old cliches are true. Warpigs, politicians, corruption. It all leads to facsism.

Look at Bp and its track record. The rich good ole boy network exists. It is stronger than the government.

The end is near!

lol I wish I was joking.
 
Well regardless of how little they make, if he manages to save 40% he's doing FAR better than I am. I'm lucky if i manage to scrape by with 20% in any given month.
 
so 18% of his salary goes to rent?... 44% of my salary goes to rent a room :(
 
Thats it, a typical propaganda press release, then everybody thinks how great everything is over there. It's not all about the money, maybe there are other things that should be looked in to as well?

Send a undercover reporter from a real newspaper in there, and make him work in there for 6 months, then let us hear what he has to say about what it's "really" like.

Stupid small minded people falling for American made propaganda.
 
Dude get's free meals, and TWO 1 hour dinner breaks. His rent, water, and power are $51 which is 22% of his monthly salary and he can save 40% after spending money on some luxuries. All of this doesn't include what his girlfriend makes either. My dad works at Ford and usually works 10 hour shifts. It's not that different there than here when it comes to factories. Yes, we don't get to see his apartment. Maybe its small but still. On the notion that he is timed, the company is out to make sure they have employees that can complete the task given to them. I'm sure when he was hired this was explained to him. 1 minute to attach 2 chips and 4 screws. He doesn't have to use a manual screw driver. That would take like 30-45 seconds tops. If you convert the percentage of bills to salary rate. That would be equivalent to having $1500 a month in bills but making 7 grand a month in salary.
 
Stimpy88 said:
Thats it, a typical propaganda press release, then everybody thinks how great everything is over there. It's not all about the money, maybe there are other things that should be looked in to as well?

Send a undercover reporter from a real newspaper in there, and make him work in there for 6 months, then let us hear what he has to say about what it's "really" like.

Stupid small minded people falling for American made propaganda.
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Yup, I stopped taking the article seriously when it said his supervisor "ok'ed" that he described his work shift to American media. Obviously just a bullshit propaganda story.
 
kschaffner said:
Dude get's free meals, and TWO 1 hour dinner breaks. His rent, water, and power are $51 which is 22% of his monthly salary and he can save 40% after spending money on some luxuries. All of this doesn't include what his girlfriend makes either. My dad works at Ford and usually works 10 hour shifts. It's not that different there than here when it comes to factories. Yes, we don't get to see his apartment. Maybe its small but still. On the notion that he is timed, the company is out to make sure they have employees that can complete the task given to them. I'm sure when he was hired this was explained to him. 1 minute to attach 2 chips and 4 screws. He doesn't have to use a manual screw driver. That would take like 30-45 seconds tops. If you convert the percentage of bills to salary rate. That would be equivalent to having $1500 a month in bills but making 7 grand a month in salary.
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You're comparing american auto workers to the chinese?? :D:D American factory workers especially auto workers are in heaven compared to them. Even with all the paycuts they get WAY too much for what they do.

I wonder how much your dad gets for those 10hr shifts compared to the chinese guy and I bet he has a nice cushy union too. It's not just the HOURS it's how hard they work too and how they are treated.
 
i work to live. i don't live to work. 40 hours a week for me(or less) and overtime when its called for at my job.
 
This is not a typical story of a worker in China. I don't think you guys realize this. I worked for a company that had a factory in China and was there 3 times for at least 2 weeks each time so I am pretty familiar with what goes on there. I worked at the company for a bit over 10 years before getting laid off.

Low level workers typically live at the factory, not an outside apartment. With the company I worked at there were 6 people per factory dorm room. The dorm rooms did not have a bathroom, there was a community bathroom that several rooms had to share.

These low level workers did not make enough money to go home to see their families except for maybe during Chinese New Year. I knew some that did not even go home then because of the expense.

Also keep in mind most factories have walls, gates, and guards for security. They almost feel like prisons. Workers where I was at had badges and had to swipe them at a reader when then left the factory and when they came back. Uniforms were worn by the workers at almost all times, even when they were outside the factory. If you aren't getting it, it's a depressing situation for me to try to paint so you can all understand. I could not imagine having that sort of life.
 
The great irony is that these conditions mirror what America, England, and the rest of Europe saw during the Industrial Revolution. The hellish conditions there in the 19th century led to withering critiques of capitalism by socialist and communist thinkers like Marx, and China is ruled by a "Community Party" that is grinding down its own workers to achieve massive capitalist growth.

History recognizes no limits when it comes to irony.
 
My electricity bill this month was more than his wages and his rent. That's not including cable and 50mb Comcast and my current cell phone plan. I say he would prob commit suicide if he came here with the same test. I know I think about it everytime I get my bills every month.. heh
 
Matrices said:
The great irony is that these conditions mirror what America, England, and the rest of Europe saw during the Industrial Revolution. The hellish conditions there in the 19th century led to withering critiques of capitalism by socialist and communist thinkers like Marx, and China is ruled by a "Community Party" that is grinding down its own workers to achieve massive capitalist growth.

History recognizes no limits when it comes to irony.
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You don't get something from nothing. Someone has to do the work sooner or later, or you just stay poor. I guess they finally figured that out.
 
American workers have increased their productivity many times over the last four decades, yet their real wages are stagnant while the net wealth of executives have increased about fifty fold in the same period. So you can definitely "do the work and stay poor" in capitalism; the wealth is generated, but it simply flows (more like it is sucked) upwards.

In truth, Chinese capitalism has done far more to raise the living standards of the average Chinese in two decades than American capitalism has in five. Their middle class has exploded while ours is shrinking.
 
I think the western world sees them as making so little, but based on their life style and economy, it fits, it is like in costa rica, the avg salary a month is less then $1000US, yet i make 4x that, if i wanted to i could easily live on less then $1000 a month and be very happy.

They aren't as "excessive" over there as we are over here.
 
Yuan Yandong, 24, sits on a stool six nights a week, 12 hours a night barring meal and bathroom breaks, and assembles computer hard drives for an American company

He places two plastic chips inside the drive’s casing, inserts a device that redirects light in the drive and then fastens four screws with an electric screwdriver before sending the drive down the line. He has exactly one minute to complete the multistep task.
Click to expand...


no wonder today's hard drives have such high failure rates.

1 minute timer >>> hurry hurry !!
a loose screw here and there. poor solder. There's just no consistency in quality.
 
dr.kevin said:
1 minute timer >>> hurry hurry !!
a loose screw here and there. poor solder. There's just no consistency in quality.
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i wonder if enterprise hard drives are made in better factories, or do they go through more quality checks?
 
spinelli said:
My girlfriend and her coworkers have not had a day off in almost a month, it is the busy time of year at her job. She starts at 5am or 7am and if there are meetings she may not leave work until 8 or 9.
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Exactly.

That, with sucky pay... I don't understand the uproar about these workers. Like you said about your GF... people work here, too. Not every company has vacation.

Many people commute, too. An hour each way is 10 extra hours just for traveling. Whereas many of these Foxconn workers actually live there.

I'd love to keep 40% of my money.
 
Listen to this. I have a $150K home. My 30 year mortgage, just what I pay towards principal and interest each year is $8400. My property tax for 1 year, is $4000.

In 35 years I will have paid as much in taxes on my house as my house is worth. Thats $350 a month that I will never ever get to "pay off". Property tax is the only tax that isn't optional.

All the other taxes you can get around by doing something different, but not property tax....its fucking never ending rent from the government, and it pisses me off to no end every time I think about it.
 
That's really no different than any other taxes... What's that have to do with anything?
 
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