If not for basic human decency, then at least in the name of productivity these issues should have been solved.
It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.
It just seems stupid to not offer a sane working environment.
You need to read about the history of corporatism from the mid 19th to the early 20th century. It's absolutely not stupid: it's optimal. The problem is that these two goals (optimal productivity and human rights) will conflict. There's absolutely an economic case to be made for working someone to the bone (and 16-hour workdays and beatings used to be the norm); it is, however, also unethical and morally wrong.
It's absolutely not optimal, it's inefficient. Many companies have learned this, which is why you see things like "Unlimited Vacations! Free snacks! Company provided lunches!" etc, offered as perks.
For low-skill labor, there isn't much benefit in making employees lives overly comfortable, but it is worth it to invest in some basic amenities - easy access to clean restrooms, regular breaks, clean air, clean water, warmth. These are the basics.
In the case of these workers:
- Better dorms = good sleep/less sickness
- Decent food (without worms...) = less sickness/healthier employees
- Decent toilets = less sickness/reduced stress
All of these => happier, more energetic, and less distracted employees => more efficient work => more work gets done.
With the benefit of making your company look like a good place to work.
You assume they have to keep those workers here. Foxconn can just get new people when the old ones break. It isn't optimal on a country level, but for the company it is optimal. Which is why we make laws to prevent companies from abusing workers like this.
My money is on better work conditions being a better investment long term. It'd reduce turnover. Less time hiring/training new employees, and the employees you keep are happier, stick around longer, and become more efficient at their job through experience.
You might have noticed that most companies don't care about these things, because it doesn't matter much for them. For software engineers or equivalent, sure it matters a lot, but for unskilled workers that needs minimal training? Then it doesn't matter much, as even today we see that basically no company cares about their minimum wage workers conditions.
I've noticed the opposite. Even when I worked retail jobs (minimum wage) in high-school and college, those employers considered morale the be an important aspect of a productive work environment.
We'd have company BBQs, random pizza days, birthday recognition (sometimes with cake), etc. They gave us the proper tools to do our jobs, including gloves/box cutters/shirts/etc. Typically if you told a manger you needed something (work related), they would get it for you. Things chugged along fairly well.
Reducing turnover was an active goal because it cost them time and money to hire and retrain new people, even for basic tasks.
OP suggested that I had "noticed" their perspective and I shared my opposing experience.
A history lesson on "we used to do things this way, but then we made a law that says we can't anymore" isn't an analysis. It just tells me that people got fed up with being overworked and lobbied for a law against it. Not that their employers were making informed decisions.
It's akin to the broken "butts-in-seats" culture that has been slowly dying. Many employers are realizing that more hours at a desk isn't always a net gain in the long term.
I have zero sympathy for Capital when they have to sacrifice Profit for Ethical/Moral treatment of Labour.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/20/foxconn-r...
The title oddly enough is "Apple faces its 'Nike moment' over working conditions in Chinese factories" from 2012.
One challenge here is that the host government (local, provincial, or national) is often complicit and might not agree to allowing such inspections. In that case, you simply have to be ready to walk away.
Such a strange situation, where a company has to walk away from letting people work for them because they can't verify their working conditions are good enough. I suppose these are the tricky side-effects of being an international corporation though.
In countries like India, the supply of daily wage workers is almost limitless and companies don't have to care much about their retention as they can easily be replaced. What you're asking may be the efficient way of doing things for businesses in countries where there is a labour shortage and workers have more options than the employers.
You are very (very) wrong and need to read some history. I strongly suggest an economics primer like Robert Heilbroner's The Worldly Philosophers[1]. It's the second-best selling economics book in history and well worth the price of admission.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82120.The_Worldly_Philos...
If I am wrong, I'm sure your history lessons should be able to provide good examples how I am incorrect, and I would be happy to hear if that's the case, but I can't see just saying "you're wrong, read history" as productive conversation.
You're denying a very foundational economic fact which, as a society, we litigated over a century ago, so giving you a resource (I can cite chapter numbers if you'd like me to) seems appropriate. Capitalist forces will always tend towards optimality and working people to the bone (including children) is optimal. This is why we need to have governmental forces preempt this by making these kinds of things (e.g. child labor) illegal.
This isn't really a dig against capitalism, it's simply how the system works by design. In other words, you're denying the precise thing that corporations optimize for: worker productivity and shareholder value.
General inefficiency in their company is completely fine as long as they continue to increase revenue, as revenue growth is the only "efficiency" that matters in capitalism.
No -- Apple management sees this as a smart move, actually. Allowing these little flare-ups to happen now and then allows senior management to broadcast to the world just how cold-blooded they really are. Which helps keep the staff at home in line.