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      Apple, Foxconn convince Indian state to loosen labor laws

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 10 March, 2023 - 14:21

    iPhone factory floor

    Enlarge / Employees work on an assembly line in the mobile phone plant of Rising Stars Mobile India Pvt., a unit of Foxconn Technology Co., in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, India, on Friday, July 12, 2019. (credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images )

    Apple and its manufacturing partner Foxconn were among the companies behind a landmark liberalization of labor laws in the Indian state of Karnataka last month, according to three people familiar with the matter.

    Their successful lobbying for new legislation means two-shift production can take place in India, akin to the two companies’ practices in China, their primary manufacturing base. The law gives the southern state one of the most flexible working regimes in India as the country aims to become an alternative manufacturing base to China.

    Karnataka’s move is an attempt to seize the opportunity created by companies that are seeking to end an over reliance on Chinese manufacturing, following months of COVID-19 disruption that has shaken global supply chains.

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      Ex-Apple employees say company ignored China labor-law violations

      Samuel Axon · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 10 December, 2020 - 20:52

    An iPhone assembly worker works with Apple supplier Pegatron in an image distributed by Apple.

    Enlarge / An iPhone assembly worker works with Apple supplier Pegatron in an image distributed by Apple. (credit: Apple )

    A new report in The Information cites both former Apple employees and internal presentations and data to make the case that Apple has failed to keep its manufacturing partners in China accountable after the Chinese government passed a new law limiting the use of temporary workers at factories.

    The former Apple employees included three from Apple's supplier responsibility team, and one who was "a senior manager familiar with its operations in China."

    In the mid-2010s, China introduced a new labor law that required factories to limit the portion of their workforces made up of temporary workers (also called dispatch workers) to 10 percent.

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      Wisconsin blames Foxconn, says $3 billion factory deal is off

      Timothy B. Lee · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 13 October, 2020 - 14:40 · 1 minute

    Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, and former House Speaker Paul Ryan participate in a groundbreaking for a Foxconn facility in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin in 2018. Foxconn has hired significantly fewer people than it claimed it would do at the time of the company

    Enlarge / Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Donald Trump, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, and former House Speaker Paul Ryan participate in a groundbreaking for a Foxconn facility in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin in 2018. Foxconn has hired significantly fewer people than it claimed it would do at the time of the company's 2017 development deal with the state. (credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

    The state of Wisconsin was supposed to provide Foxconn with $3 billion in subsidies over the next few years to support the construction of a massive LCD display factory in the state. The deal was negotiated in 2017 by Gov. Scott Walker and announced by Donald Trump at a White House event. It was part of Trump's strategy to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.

    In a Monday letter, the state informed Foxconn that the company wouldn't get the first installment of the $3 billion because Foxconn wasn't holding up its end of the deal. Under Foxconn's 2017 agreement with the state, Foxconn would be eligible for the first round of subsidies if it hired at least 520 full-time employees to work on the LCD panel factory by the end of 2019. Foxconn claimed that it had cleared this bar by hiring 550 employees in the state. But Wisconsin found that Foxconn had only 281 employees who counted toward the requirement.

    Foxconn was supposed to spend $3.3 billion on the project by the end of 2019. Instead, Foxconn had only spent around $300 million by the end of the year.

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      China trade war could push iPhone contractor Foxconn to build in Mexico

      Timothy B. Lee · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 24 August, 2020 - 16:09

    China trade war could push iPhone contractor Foxconn to build in Mexico

    Enlarge (credit: Samuel Axon)

    For years, iPhones (or their boxes) have said that they were "designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China." But thanks to an escalating trade war between the US and China, that might not be true in the coming years. Reuters reports that two of Apple's biggest manufacturing contractors, Foxconn and Pegatron, are working to expand their facilities in Mexico with an eye toward eventually building iPhones there.

    Foxconn's plans aren't final, Reuters reports. Apple hasn't signed off on the idea and declined to comment to Reuters. But Foxconn is reportedly looking to make a final decision this year.

    Foxconn already has a significant presence in Mexico. Five Foxconn factories in Mexico make televisions, servers, and other products. But building iPhones could represent a major expansion of Foxconn's activities in the Latin American country.

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