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Awareness of this kind of thing often influences consumer preferences, spending.
'Fairtrade' (fair wages for farmers in undeveloped countries), boycotting Primark (child labour), etc.
Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
11–20 of 224 posts
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#12[flagged]
Speaking for myself, I don't have any real solutions, but I think it is an important part of our humanity to at least occasionally contemplate all the suffering that our society is built upon, because each of us has to have a line at which we become the ones who walk away from/fight for a better Omleas.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#13> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. W…
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation.
> 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them.
I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that maintains and repairs itself, and a magical AI box that makes optimal business decisions, and then just sit there owning these magical things and harvesting money every quarter. Humanity consists of the few who own all the boxes, living in opulent luxury, and the many who don't and barely subsist enough to buy the products.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#14[flagged]
It's a technology company and a major one too, I'd say it's well in scope for HN.
It also concerns humans, of which we are all part of. Some have more empathy to suffering of fellow humans than others, that has always been the case. For most part, HN leans into more humanitarian part of the scale.
OP will find it hard to find sympathy here, or almost anywhere else apart from most primitive and easily manipulated corners of human society for that matter.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#15> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. W…
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that mainta…
Historically, violence has been at least somewhat successful as a disincentive for this. Hasn't always fixed the immediate problem but the threat of it, and eventual implementation, kept too much of a gap from happening.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#16I worked for a giant Korean company (offshore, third party outsource). Their view of workers right is very different from "the west". It was said, among my colleagues at the time, that in our country their main headquarters had a law office exclusively to handle abuse cases quickly. I heard stories of Korean lifting their voices and a case where the chair of a programmer was kicked by a Korean manager because he let a bug pass.
AFAIK, this is actually part of their culture. They are very strict about hierarchy and it is seen as a kind of honor that is ingrained even in their language. There's even a case where this resulted in an air disaster.
I really hope that the current trend of culture interchange between Korea an "the west" may influence both societies for the better.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#17> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. W…
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that mainta…
If you own enough of these automated factories, you don't need to sell anything at all. Just produce whatever luxury item you want, in addition to mundane things like food and shelter (in the form of caviar and villas, because why not?).
That will mark the time when technology is advanced enough that humanity will fracture with small independent groups going out and fending for themselves, possibly in outer space. Some SF scenarios call them "great houses", because they somewhat resemble feudal kingdoms where a kind of extended family rules, except there are no peasants.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#18> Samsung’s 12-inch line utilizes an overhead hoist transport (OHT) system, an automated transport network that operates along tracks installed on the ceiling, to move bundles of 25 wafers called “lots.” On the 8-inch line, however, this transportation is done manually. There is much more market demand for 12-inch wafers, so Samsung has modernized and automated many processes. The 8-inch line, however, is outdated. W…
> 1. Some workers lose their jobs to automation. > 2. The remaining ones have a weaker negotiation power, as their jobs are on the way out anyway. So companies have even more incentive to abuse them. I wonder what the eventual end game is, when you let everything play out to its logical conclusion. Eventually, business owners will no longer need people at all. They'll own a magical fully-automated factory that mainta…
The richest and most powerful will lobby for universal basic income because it will benefit them at some tipping point, where the masses will need to be subsidized to keep the consumption machine running, maybe?
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#19> “When someone is exempt from overtime due to a pregnancy, they don’t send anyone in their place, which means those of us left on the line just have to do more work,” said Worker A.
> “Technically, we get an hour for lunch, but the machinery never stops operating, so someone has to fill that spot at all times,” Worker A added.
Samsung being the successful company that it is, I can't imagine they don't know that they don't understanding that taking people out of a work team requires putting in a replacement, so I'll take "Malicious compliance with work safety" for 500 Alex.
Re: Women who make Samsung semiconductors are striking
#20> “When someone is exempt from overtime due to a pregnancy, they don’t send anyone in their place, which means those of us left on the line just have to do more work,” said Worker A. > “Technically, we get an hour for lunch, but the machinery never stops operating, so someone has to fill that spot at all times,” Worker A added. Samsung being the successful company that it is, I can't imagine they don't know that they…
This is the hidden reality of how consumer electronics assembly work.
Doesn't matter if it's South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, China, Philippines, India, Indonesia, etc - these are common work conditions, and it's usually the same managers in all those countries.
If native SKeans, TWese, JPese don't want to do these jobs the employers just bring "Interns" from Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, etc and pay them $7,000 a year - which beats earning $2,000 a year either underemployed or doing the same job in those countries.
It's horrid, but that's the reality of the gizmos you and everyone else likes using.