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Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

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Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#81

My mom works 12 hour shifts as a CNC machinist in the United States. Is there some point to this article or is it just neat to know?

Does she work more than 40 hours / week? If so, she very likely gets paid 1.5x for any hours worked above 40.

Do you think Apple and Foxconn are paying Indian women time and a half for hours above 40?

That said, I'm nearly 100% certain that these women would rather have these jobs working in a clean facility than the alternative.

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#82
post #53

My mom works 12 hour shifts as a CNC machinist in the United States. Is there some point to this article or is it just neat to know?

Yes, most modern countries have between 35 and 40 hour work weeks.

[flagged]

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#83

I have very little understanding of India. While reading the article, it sounds like the changes to Indian labor law would enable more hours to be worked. However, I don't understand whether this is a good or bad thing for the average worker (and/or woman) in India. Can someone provide more insight? Thanks.

I don’t know the finer details, but if they are proportionately paid more this is definitely a big step in the right direction for women workers. In general, women participation in workforce is outright abysmal in India. Hopefully this will be on of the many small steps towards addressing that.

Can you elaborate what precisely is the issue with low female participation in a country's workforce?

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#84
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those shifts does she work in a week?

Not sure, but I assume 40 hours total. It looks like India has a nationwide maximum of 48 hours before overtime. So they have a whole extra day's work than we do in the US. That is now for both men and women.

The contract team I used to work with would work Mon-Sat. That then changed to Mon-Fri + alternate Sats, but over a decade ago they simply became Mon-Fri.

So at least in tech, it seems the norm is becoming to work 40 hr days as well.

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#85
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's inherently abusive about a 12 hour work day? And you don't here complaints in the US because the US does not limit the amount of hours you can work in a day. It just says that companies must provide an unpaid break for more than 5 consecutive hours of work.

> And you don't here complaints in the US because the US does not limit the amount of hours you can work in a day. The media may not amplify the complaints but the complaints are very real. > It just says that companies must provide an unpaid break for more than 5 consecutive hours of work. US law does not say that.

What does it say?

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#86
post #52
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many employers effectively force exempt employees to work 12 hour days.

Then don't take a salary. Nobody is forcing you to work for a nice salary. If you want to be paid by the hour so that every hour is accounted for then go for it.

Of course, in practice that is not a possibility for most people. You can't just choose to work hourly if nobody is willing to hire you on these terms. Without regulation the balance of power is strongly in the hands of capital and inevitably leads to employers working employees to death. We have plenty of examples of this in our past.

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#87

I don't get this. Why push your work force like this? It's clearly very bad for the workers. And also for the factory, surely having 3 shifts is more efficient because your workers are not as fatigued so will work faster with fewer mistakes?

For 24x7 production operations, 12 hour shifts make a lot of sense. You work 12 hours, hand off your role to the next incoming shift, and 12 hours later they hand off back to you. You do this for 3 days one week, 4 days the next. 4 hours of OT every day. I did this for 2 years at an LSI fab in Colorado Springs and it was great.

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#88
post #78

In addition to the 12 hour shift for all, and night shifts being allowed for women, there is still a 48 hour workweek, and maximum overtime of 145 hours in a 3 month period (an average of one extra 12 hour shift per week). Indian employers are required to pay double for overtime, so this seems mostly like the ability to move to 12x4 instead of 8x6. From an Indian minister: > “Now, the rule is that workers should work…

This reminds me of when people in China were expected to work on Saturdays back in 1999. Developing countries often require 48 hours a week as a way of catching up.

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know the finer details, but if they are proportionately paid more this is definitely a big step in the right direction for women workers. In general, women participation in workforce is outright abysmal in India. Hopefully this will be on of the many small steps towards addressing that.

Can you elaborate what precisely is the issue with low female participation in a country's workforce?

The fact that half your workforce doesn't have an opportunity to contribute to the country's growth?

I mean, cut the US or Europe's output by 25-30% (to match India's low female participation) and you're basically talking about eliminating decades of growth. People would be so much poorer and worse off.

And that's just at the national level. There are a whole lot of other issues at the individual level, and the fact that it indicates a lack of freedom and opportunity for nearly half the country's population.

Re: Apple and Foxconn win permission for 12-hour shifts for women in India

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shift change problem can be eliminated by having shifts overlap, hospitals just don't want to hire more staff to make that happen.

Exactly; this idea that we HAVE to overwork our medical professionals is just outdated, and especially since COVID, actively detrimental to our healthcare systems. Hire more people, pay them more, and give them time off so they don't burn out or get sick themselves.

> Hire more people

Sure. Where are all of these medical professionals who are looking for work?

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