Violence breaks out at Wistron Corp’s iPhone manufacturing plant near Bengaluru
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
> “While an engineering graduate was promised Rs 21,000 per month, his/her salary had reduced to Rs 16,000 and, subsequently, to Rs 12,000 in the recent months. Non-engineering graduates monthly salary had reduced to Rs 8,000. The salary amount being credited to our accounts have been reducing and it was frustrating to see this,” an employee alleged.
Not being familiar with Indian pay practices, just wondering what the company thought the outcome would be after trying this? That nobody would notice?? That they'd just think "oh well, that's OK, company must be short this week"?? Because pretty much in any sizable American company employees would just stop working if they didn't get paid.
What had alleged happened in the story is salary theft, i.e. the employer stealing part of the employee's remuneration for work already performed in the past.
I can't speak to India's legal system, but if this had happened in the US then it would be a federal crime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
That's what I don't understand here: is Wistron in distress, or is this a routine abuse of employees?
I.e. not to be rude but I do not at all believe your second hand source.
Company is adjusting its the price of labor based on more info it comes across.
I am not surprised and really if you work with them, you'll know they don't deserve more money.
Just because some college awarded them a degree doesn't mean they are entitled to high wage.
By America, I’m not sure what you meant - since you used Europe in the same sentence, I’m assuming you meant continent. But wait, there is no continent named ‘America’. It’s either South America, or North America. Collectively, they are sometimes referred as ‘America’s’. In case you meant country, you are incorrect in that too- there is no country named ‘America’. I’m one such Engineering graduate from India. I hope I didn’t sound like a high-school drop-out!
> Just because some college awarded them a degree doesn't mean they are entitled to high wage.
You seem to assume that the company was forced to hire them right out of college with no opportunity to interview them. Having interviewed for 30 Mech/Chem positions once, I was among 5000 engineers who were interviewed. Out if entire engineering curriculum, the interviewer asked me to make an iron-carbon diagram on the spot. Leave high-school drop outs, most engineers -from around the world - would be pretty hard pressed to get it right in an interview for a plant engineer position. Indian job market is a high supply-low demand market for engineers, and interviews could be pretty grueling!
They should just quit working for them and move elsewhere not impede those who are happy with the wage they are receiving.
They were a well trained workforce who disagreed with the idea that improvements in technology should reduce wages. When the new looms came in, factories could produce the same goods with unskilled labor, and the owners could pocket the difference in wages.
The Luddites believed that the factory owners should still split profits with the workers and pay a skilled wage while getting the increased output the new looms could provide.
It can simultaneously be true that globilisation is uplifting poorer economies and also that there is violence breaking out near Bengaluru.
Asia has proven to have a repeatable formula for getting wealthy. Working hard & cheaply is a key step.
Globalization doesn’t try to uplift human rights. It only seeks to enrich through free trade. Turns out, enriching people is fairly effective at eliminating human rights abuses. Or at the very least, there’s enough of a correlation that it’s worth repeating.
By what mechanism does it do that? Everyone who is motivated to make profits has incentive to pay the least possible on payroll and taxation. Human rights empower people to demand higher wages, and any government-sourced provision of quality of life increase taxation. People who's talents align with in-demand skills may have some leverage to increase their wealth and provide a better life for themselves, but without government intervention, that means little for everyone else.
Edit: Do agree about unionization - but once again, the right to start or join a union is something that must be enforced by government policy, and voters need to care about human rights for that to occur.
People choose the best option - so if I have a job doing hard manual labour for $70/hr or desk job that pays $80/hr I'll go do the desk work because it is easier and better paid.
But someone needs to do the manual labour, so if literally nobody takes the job on then whoever wants the work done is forced to raise wages or do without.
In a practical way, things like the Apple supply chain increase demand for workers, so the equilibrium wage has no choice but to tend upwards. There are more jobs but the same number of people - so if a business wants its job done it has to pay more.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease where improvements from high-productivity workers translate into increased wages in other unrelated segments. People get paid more without even necessarily doing anything differently!
Then all that adds up to it being difficult to oppress the human rights of wealthy people. They have the resources to fight back.
There might be some merit to Baumol's cost disease, but I'd wager the studies that support the theory were limited to domestic economies in wealthy countries (orchestras in particular are a weird example because they are propped up often by sponsorship and government arts funding). Even still, consider now the growing wage disparity in the US, a 'wealthy' nation, where people are earning less almost across the board excluding tech, yet a sliver of the population is gaining wealth exponentially. Gained advantages from production efficiencies are being routed by globalisation - the claimed 'uplifting' force for the poor. And on the other end, China had to find slaves from somewhere to fulfil demand at the lower end, and suddenly a bunch of 're-education' camps pop up and commandeer the most politically expendable population as extra human resources.
So? My company has no incentive to pay me any more than they absolutely have to, or treat me any better than they are forced to. They pay me well and treat me very well, because the market says they have to.
That incentive doesn't limit the upper bound quality of life of employees in any meaningful way, unless changing jobs is illegal.
> ...Gained advantages from production efficiencies are being routed by globalisation - the claimed 'uplifting' force for the poor...
I'm not sure exactly what the argument is there, but America's problems are certainly not linked to new corporations entering the American market due to globalisation. If anything, the problem is that the jobs America would use to make poor people wealthy and satisfied are leaving and going to places like Bengaluru, where they will in time raise local living standards substantially.
It is difficult to argue that globalisation is hurting America and India simultaneously. India is strictly better off, and America is arguably better off under standard economic theory.
> consider now the growing wage disparity in the US
The US does a lot of stupid stuff economically speaking, like everyone else. The zeitgeist of US politics for the last 12+ years has been all about protecting failing institutions from change and they are paying a price for that. But that has not so much to do with globalisation.
It seems everyone is talking past my original point here. I'm not sure if it's in bad faith, or if it's just that they haven't followed the entire thread. So let me restate that I'm not talking about jobs in wealthy countries, for people who can leverage their skills for a better wage.
> It is difficult to argue that globalisation is hurting America and India simultaneously.
Not at all, you're missing the bigger picture. It's easier for me just say 'wait and see', because the back-steps on human rights around the world are an emerging pattern at the moment that I think most people in the western world are completely naive to.
If your country degrades its human rights in order to compete for un-automatable unskilled labor, or any labor at all, the ability to unionize evaporates, government policy favors corporate interests over its citizens, and we end up with countries like India, looking across at what China is doing, and copying it. They aren't looking at the West and going 'democracy is great!', let's give our citizens freedom, they're going 'Our friends in wealth and power have a bunch of striking workers, how do I help them keep their profits and increase government revenue'... and then look at the US and other western nations that are bending to China's will. (And it's only a matter of time before western nations start winding back human rights, or liveable wages to 'be globally competitive', just follow the anti-union behaviour of some of the large tech companies).
Crucially, if there's a place in the world where enabling slavery provides a competitive advantage, it will happen, until it's outlawed globally, and that can only happen through global will motivating the right political manoeuvres. And don't become complacent about the human rights that you enjoy today, because they are already being undermined.
> They pay me well and treat me very well, because the market says they have to.
Maybe you have a nice job and are treated well by your employer, but you weren't born to low status in India, you were born in a wealthy country, possibly had a good household and upbringing, and maybe have some rare talents that give you an edge over your fellow citizens. You won the lottery. Means nothing to the sweatshop worker making your underwear.
> But that has not so much to do with globalisation.
Absolutely it does. You only have to see how much of the domestic manufacturing capacity has been transferred to China, taking the jobs along with it. America has amassed a large trade deficit with China and other countries, and their GDP hasn't suffered a hit, because the people at the top are making plenty of money. The real people who are suffering are the one's who got Trump elected.
China. The people in China are undoubtedly economically uplifted. They have ever fewer rights though.
in fact. the chinese recently just claimed to have finished the job. apparently the very last village classified as being in poverty there got reclassified.
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/china-83...
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201123-the-psychology...
But that's just the start, and the situation with the Uyghurs is the tip of the iceberg, plenty of that is going on in sweatshops around the world.
Anyway, I won't keep on repeating myself:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25405400
> 1 million is a small number.
What sort of monster are you?
And you can be sure that this problem is still happening across the broader population at the tail end. Any talk of China lifting its citizens out of poverty has to be viewed sceptically, given their brazen lack of transparency.
The bias in this story towards equating property damage and physical violence is most terrifying in that the authors seem to legitimately not even notice it.
Also, in judicial systems where the distinction exists, vandalism is generally considered a non-violent crime.
Take this scenario, for example. Would hacking a factory to damage some sensors be violent? Of course not. If you think that some cases of property damage are indeed violence, you'd have to find a reason to draw the line, and I'm not sure you can without referring to human harm.
In summation, the protests and property destruction indeed had psychological effects, even if you want to believe they did not.
And even then, trying to equate the discomfort caused by such property destruction and the violence of brutalizing and killing people is completely unjustifiable.
Maybe I'm being overly legalistic, but I think if no one is in the hospital and no one's life was put under direct threat the crime was not violent. I am definitely not saying there shouldn't be a civil suit involved, or that it is okay. If said right wingers were rioting over unpaid wages and abuse over many months and years well, I would likely have a different opinion right? These are people acting in a way that causes financial injury in protest over financial injury, not out of racial bias or desire to cause physical harm.
It is not about violence to me at all; calling breaking a machine violence really dilutes the meaning and clearly is intended to make the reader think the the people doing this are hurting people.
That said, in general, I think it can be frightening and traumatic to some people to see angry people destroying things. I know it would be for a kid seeing an angry drunk parent destroy their tablet they play games on, even if it's just a machine. This isn't the same as that, but just trying to say, we should try to understand that certain violent (or whatever you'd like to call destructive) actions will frighten some people.
There is no spin. It was a violent riot. There is no way around it.
Oddly enough, you're the one trying to spin the news to somehow hide the violent nature of the protest, and instead pretend it was just a few people mildly annoyed for having half they paycheck stolen by their employer.
I get it, you feel that the focus on the violent protests shifts the attention away from the salaries being stolen by the employer. Yet, are you really doing any favours by trying to spin away the resulting violence and brush it under the rug? Think about it. Do you believe that the kind of people who feels empowered to steal half the paycheck from all their employees is the kind of people who get bothered by the resulting mild annoyance? Or do you believe that having to face direct consequences in the form of.violent actions directed at them is a more effective way of ensuring this abuse is dissuaded?
There is no way to deny the existence of point 5 on the list, but all of 1-4 offered excellent occasions to prevent point 5.
People who overestimate their power risk having their tea vilently thrown into the sea, and that's violence and illegal.
The term “crime of violence” means—
(a) an offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or
(b) any other offense that is a felony and that, by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.
> late 13c., "physical force used to inflict injury or damage," from Anglo-French and Old French violence (13c.), from Latin violentia "vehemence, impetuosity," from violentus "vehement, forcible," probably related to violare (see violation). Weakened sense of "improper treatment" is attested from 1590s.
If I tell someone "there was violence downtown" to me it carries extremely strong tones of physical injury. If I tell someone "there are riots downtown" to me it carries extremely strong tones of chaotic potential for violence, but not violence in and of itself.
I appreciate how you are attempting to use linguistic arguments for your case, which is laudable, but I am talking about how I think it would be read by people without a deeply technical reading of the language.
What about anyone that would constantly belittle or insult someone else, make fun of him and so on. Isn't that a form a violence ? Even if never comes to anything physical ? You can really do damage that way.
Given the replies above, it looks like your understanding of the word "violence" is narrowed down and only considers "physical harm made to people". It really encompass more than that. It is a powerful word that express the idea of harm being made, regardless of the target or the form.
Tbh though I think destruction of property reasonably counts as violence; the more important question is whether that violence is justified. In this case it seems justified.
But I guess that's probably next on the list of definitions to be "re-written" by a certain political ideology. Within a few years I bet the current definition will be memory-holed and dictionaries will list a new definition, like so many other words/terms that have had their meanings changed in the last decade.
I can tell you that this kind of "violence," when unaddressed, can easily escalate to the other kind of violence:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/ceo-beaten-to-death-by-...
Pretty much every single dictionary managed to get all their definitions of "violence" to point to the same meaning, which includes destruction of property.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/violence
I haven't yet read into the details of this case, and I may end up siding with the protestors once I have. But I do not abide the corruption of language for whatever political ends.
I have never understood violence to mean property damage, rather than physical harm to someone. It may be that the dictionaries define it differently, but that is certainly not the colloquial usage.
One of these words that (to some) no longer means what it has always meant is "censorship," and now "violence" is getting the same treatment.
Look up "violence" in any legitimate dictionary and you will see that it is not limited to personal injury. You will see definitions such as:
"the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy"
or
"intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force"
TFA describes employees "who were exiting the facility after completing their night-shift, went on a rampage destroying the company's furniture, assembly units and even attempted to set fire to vehicles."
To describe these actions done in this manner as "property damage" mischaracterizes the reality of what happened and suggests that an agenda is being pushed on the reader.
Some people were probably scared. That sucks. It also sucks that stuff got busted. I'm sure some people will get arrested and charged with things. But these are things solved with money.
No one was injured. My point is that saying it was "violent" implies that there were people hurt. I was reading with horror to see how many had died. That was why it stuck out to me when there were not even injuries.
It is as simple as that. Using a word that does not imply something that didn't happen -- it is just good writing, it's not pushing an agenda. Replace "violence" with "riots" and it has a much more generic implication. Simple.
It doesn't.
You're describing acts of violence.
> No one was injured. My point is that saying it was "violent" implies that there were people hurt.
You're trying to play the humpty dumpty game of just making up meanings of words to fit your whim of the moment.
Riots are acts of violence. Destroying entire car lots in rage is an act of violence. Destroying buildings in protest is violence. There is no way around it.
Enough with the doublespeak. People got screwed out of their paycheck, they felt enraged, thus sparking a violent protested. Understandingly so. There's no need to pretend things were different.
It is a departure from colloquial use to describe property damage as violent and it is counterintuitive to describe a "violent protest in which no one was hurt."
Maybe with your colloquialisms, but as someone in their mid 40s, I've never thought of violence in the narrow way you are describing it, and it does seem to me like this is a relatively recent redefinition of the term.
I've always thought the primary characteristic of "violence" is rageful, wild, physical destruction, regardless of whether it was directed at a human or property. For example, graffiti and a riot that burns down a building are both forms of property destruction, but only one is violent. Similarly, killing someone with a chainsaw and killing someone by poison are both forms of murder, but only one is violent.
I don't believe your assertion is remotely true. The term "vandalism" has its origins on how the Vandals tribe attacked, invaded and sacked Rome, and it refers to violence which results in widespread property damage.
You'd be hard pressed to describe 5th century barbarian invasion with words other than violence.
And by the way, car crashes are also described as violent even when no harm comes to anyone involved.
If it’s not violence it’s something equally bad not a prosaic term like “property damage” or “vandalism” which would imply you still have the property and only need to clean it up a bit.
The good old euphemism.
The word 'violence' used without context would often be understood to mean 'violence against a person'. Here it is used to mean 'violence against property'.
It's "literally" correct, but unclear and risks misunderstanding.
The headline writer is taking advantage of this disconnect to exaggerate their point. Other words such as 'riot' fit better, but are less sensational.
Obviously simplified, but it could have very well been worth it. Especially factoring in insurance and other things.
https://www.wise-geek.com/what-are-the-origins-of-the-phrase...
The word terve used to mean turn upside down in English.
Have they heard of unions?
What worries me about sensationalist media coverage of a story like this one, in the middle of a pandemic-induced global economic slowdown, is that the media coverage itself could motivate other, copycat episodes of employee violence.
Hopefully it'll scare employers into treating their employees better, or risk labor conflict like this.
Not the slowing global economy. Not the exploitation of thousands of workers. Not the realization that the products we rely on are built with exploitative practices. But, "what if the exploited people fight back?"