“Foxconn Technology Group, the top maker of Apple Inc’s iPhones and iPads whose factories are under scrutiny over labor practices, has raised wages of its Chinese workers by 16-25 percent from this month, the third rise since 2010,” Clare Jim reports for Reuters. “Taiwan-based Foxconn said the pay of a junior level worker in Shenzhen, southern China, had risen to 1,800 yuan per month and could be further raised above 2,200 yuan if the worker passed a technical examination. It said that pay three years ago was 900 yuan a month.”
Jim reports, “‘As a top manufacturing company in China, the basic salary of junior workers in all of Foxconn’s China factories is already far higher than the minimum wage set by all local governments,’ the statement said. ‘We will provide more training opportunities and learning time, and will continuously enhance technology, efficiency and salary, so as to set a good example for the Chinese manufacturing industry.'”
“In an interview with Reuters on Feb 15, the Washington D.C.-based Fair Labor Association’s president said that conditions at Apple supplier plants in China were far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country,” Jim reports. “The last time Foxconn Group raised wages was in June 2010, when the pay of its Chinese workers went up by over 30 percent.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Today, they’re hating life even more than usual at FUD, Inc.
We look forward to The New York Times’ front page report.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
FLA President: Foxconn factories ‘first-class; way, way above average’ – February 15, 2012
Handful of protesters deliver Chinese factory petition to Apple Retail Store – February 9, 2012
Protestors target Apple Retail Stores in push to fix conditions in Chinese factories – February 8, 2012
Apple CEO Tim Cook calls New York Times supplier report ‘patently false and offensive’ – January 27, 2012
I bet the Times doesn’t put this on the front page and laud Apple for it’s efforts…
This would have never happened if those petitions weren’t sent to Apple. Power to the people!
The petitions were nothing but opurtunitic slactivism
Opportunistic
You’ve got it, Rob. I guess those petitions were responsible for all the other prior raises too, right?
@Rob: I hope you are being sarcastic. Apple’s efforts to improve Foxconn working conditions started over a year and a half ago. The petitions accomplished nothing but annoyance at Apple at other people’s ignorance and laziness regarding the facts.
NY Tomes will say as all step in the right direction and continue the FUD.
Pathetic. Who cares what the Chinese workers are paid.
You will be when the relatively inexpensive iPad, etc. is suddenly not so inexpensive.
Yeah when the unions destroy their economy too. Just like in the US. Can’t wait Peter.
How much one person gets paid on the other side of Earth has the potential to impact your life in countless ways. There’s only one tiny increasingly interdependent planet that all humans live on.
The problem is as always the more you pay, the higher employee expectations get until it is no longer a cost advantage of using labor in China. Not that I want to begrudge anyone a fair wage but ultimately the problem of asking for more and more is their undoing eventually. And the people of China WILL ask for more and more as they become more liberated, more consumer oriented and emboldened.
hats off to Apple and Foxconn for leading the way in the right direction toward economic justice.
How is it that any westerner could view fair wages in China as a problem? Apple’s price for selling products is set based on the competition from other electronics manufacturers, with very weak correlation with the prevailing wage in China. Pulling up the bottom wages in the world to a level above subsistence living will benefit the entire world.
1) fair wages means more level global playing field for business (including manufacturing)
2) these Chinese workers will have an increase in economic freedom, if not actual political freedom, to improve their education and lifestyle. they still have a long way to go but this is clear evidence that Apple and Foxconn, like Henry Ford from over a century ago, finally understand that giving people middle-class economic opportunity rather than holding them at/near poverty EVEN IF IT IS LEGAL TO DO SO provides for a better world.
3) with “emboldened” people comes outrageous demands, like clean water, clean air, educational opportunities, and uncorrupted legal systems. How are any of these things bad for China or anywhere else?
Methinks that those who begrudge giving a serf a farthing more than his daily bread are merely backwards feudalists who mistakenly believe in their divine right to human exploitation. They cannot be more wrong.
On these boards there is no shortage of blowhards demeaning the advancement of global human rights, but all they can point to is profit motive to substantiate their desires. Can they offer ethical justification for their fervent empirical views?
Thanks, Mike.
I guess that we forget how expensive a war is. If the people of the world treat each other with respect and dignity, we likely will not engage in wars. The Chinese people will be lifted by their proverbial bootstraps by dealing fairly with the west and will eventually have democracy imported by default.
Remember how Japan was the enemy and yet the great people of the US helped them after the war to self sufficiency? How has that played out?
“….whose factories are under scrutiny over labor practices”
“Scrutiny” would imply the whiners actually examined the working conditions and made a real, in-context evaluation.
1800 Chinese yuan = 285.7770 US dollars
Which is far more than the average Chinese make.
To see what Chinese make:
http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml
That was from 2005 so wages would have increased.
Cost of living is an important factor. That is likely much lower than the states or Europe.
My understanding is that the work is hard and they have long hours. However this is offset by the salary and many send money to help their families. Just like migrant workers in the us.
Apple clearly are taking the lead on improving conditions and pay at these sites. So all things considered apple are leading the process and as usually everyone else is following.
Let’s remember that the Chinese Yuan is extremely devalued. In China the 1800 Yuan will buy a hell of a lot more than the 286 dollars will buy in the USA.
Americans don’t even have jobs, and they are fighting for wage increases in china.
What does that have to do with the price of cheese?
that depends:
is it Chinese cheese or American Cheese?
goat cheese or cow cheese?
if the cheese was made by Apple , NYT , CBS would be calling the cows slaves and organizations like SumofUs will be asking for a petition : “FREE the COWs”… and Zdnet will write “what about the Goats? don’t we care about the Goats?”
The Chinese tend to be lactose intolerant after early childhood, making the price of cheese almost irrelevant, which reflects the irrelevance of @Msav’s post.
I’m pretty sure this just matches the wages that Foxconn is offering at the newer Zhengzhou plant, where it recently announced that it was hiring more workers. I saw the recruitment notice at the MIC gadget website a while ago.
Unless I am mistaken, that 30% raise was the result of the last time that Apple stepped in on behalf of Foxconn workers. I don’t see Apple getting any credit for that. Meanwhile, what about Dell, HP, and the rest? MIA both in terms of action and in terms of media scrutiny.
Meanwhile, here is a fascinating article about Foxconn’s strategies to find new cheaper labor:
Foxconn: How to Beat the High Cost of Happy Workers – BusinessWeek
The NYT article worked. If EVERY employer would give 10-15% raises, we would solve the world’s economic crisis an herald in an era of fabulous growth. Good for the anew York Times. MDN got this one wrong.