What’s it like to work at Foxconn’s hellish factories? The New York Times interviewed 24 Yuan Yandong, whom describes his technical ten hour nightshift as an assembler of hard drives.
“His task is to help complete 1,600 hard drives — his workshop’s daily quota — and to make sure every one is perfect. Seated in the middle of the assembly line in his black Foxconn sports shirt, cotton slacks and company-mandated white plastic slippers, he waits for the conveyor belt to deliver a partly assembled rectangular hard drive to his station. He places two plastic chips inside the drive’s casing, inserts a device that redirects light in the drive and then fastens four screws with an electric screwdriver before sending the drive down the line. He has exactly one minute to complete the multistep task.”
The precision Foxconn expects from their workers is astounding. Every part of the manufacturing processes has been crafted into a well-oiled machine. Although at this point Foxconn might as well just develop actual machines to do the dirty work, as employees are restricted to the same task from the moment they start work, to the moment they end. However, sociology professor Lou Der Jar notes,
“Professor Luo says that the pressure can be intense and that workers are treated like machines at some factories. This is the marvel of China’s low-cost manufacturing boom. Factories are known to replace workers with machines that automate a process, but here in China factories often reverse the trend and replace costly machines with workers like Mr. Yuan — slower but sometimes preferable because there is no large upfront capital investment.”
Despite the critique, Cult of Mac suggests,
“Working at Foxconn looks tedious make no mistake, but it doesn’t look obviously hellish: the psychological factors at play that are driving Foxconn’s workers are a lot more subtle than whip-lashing taskmasters.”
To which I question, are these conditions not gruesome enough to consider labor at Foxconn hell? You try standing ten hours a day, hunched over, placing tiny pieces into a hard drive every other minute. It’s heartless, mindless labor that is better mediated for machines.
[New York Times via Cult of Mac]
