Apple and its major assembly partner Foxconn were among the companies behind a landmark reform of labor laws in the Indian state of Karnataka last month, Financial Times reports citing “three people familiar with the matter.”
John Reed and Kathrin Hille for Financial Times:
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.
The state, a centre for India’s tech industry, last week passed an amendment to its application of the factories act allowing for 12-hour shifts, up from the previous limit of nine hours. It also eased rules on night-time work for women, who dominate electronics production lines in China, Taiwan and Vietnam but are under represented in India’s workforce. The legislation caps maximum working hours at 48 per week, but also expands the number of allowable overtime hours to 145 over a three-month period, from a previous 75.
The official said Karnataka had amended its labour law after “a lot of inputs” from Indian industry lobby groups and foreign companies, including Foxconn and Apple.
MacDailyNews Take: Being able to run two 12-hour shifts around the clock is a necessity.
The CCP’s lunacy is India’s gain. – MacDailyNews, March 3, 2023
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Sure. Let’s do unfair labor in a caste society that isn’t China and pretend that it’s better than China even though it is virtually the same, but for the name and the CCP, and let’s pretend we are not still inextricably linked to China (and produce content with them in mind because of $$$), by the tendrils they have spread across industries. Though Apple silicon is impressive, their software is in an unprecedented state of awfulness across product lines (remember, ‘It just works.’?, No, it doesn’t anymore, and to be honest, it didn’t always back then. But now? There are not enough of the laughing emojis Apple seems to consider an ‘innovation’ or, ‘update’), so many things are askew, the company itself has seemingly even less ethics than during the Sculley years, etc., etc. – I am hard pressed to rekindle my former affection for Apple. I throw their stickers in the trash these days, it is nothing to be proud of. I have posted it before, but the soul of Silicon Valley really did seem to die with Steve Jobs, and it’s something I begrudgingly accept these days rather than being excited about. Haven’t watched a keynote since 2013, and I stick with Apple largely because of their position on privacy and integration, even though that too is a half-measure. So sad we live in an era where half-measures are the better alternative if one isn’t a Linux whiz. Thank goodness for those of us who are Linux whizzes.
People under 35 will likely have no idea why these points of conversation are even important due to the era they grew up in, the myriad of things they have never, and will likely never, have to deal with now that computers, phones, and tablets are locked appliances like a blender, and in that area as well – I just give up. There is nothing to praise in modern tech. Nothing. I cannot fathom having a positive comment on this site in the present, where as previously there was much to praise, and not all that long ago.
The millennial takeover of the Valley pretty much doomed it for people that can think critically and ethically. There is no longer any room for debate on that. Really, it just isn’t there. This was not the vision of Jobs or Berners-Lee, or anyone that literally created the platforms that people exploit in 2023. Thinking this was something they could keep to a basic code of ethics was probably one of the biggest mistakes modern humanity ever made, and that was, in fairness, always a projection-based problem in the Valley. At the same time; what do you do? These are also things beyond our personal control. May the backlash against all of this be heated and mighty.