I'm sure these protests have nothing whatsoever to do with lockdown and are 100% due to the fact that Foxconn is a 'western capitalist company.'
The $205.4B Gulag
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
They go without food, and double up and triple up in rooms that they rent. And though homelessness is more prevalent among undergrad students, it also happens to a lot of grad student workers too.
Can you point to statistics of homelessness and food scarcity amongst university students in California? I would be surprised if it is more than a rounding error, but open to being shocked.
https://www.ucop.edu/global-food-initiative/_files/food-hous...
A 2017 study found:
- 5% of UC Graduate students had experienced homelessness.
- 26% of UC Graduate students had experienced food insecurity.
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#73Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps grad student workers should just struggle in silence, due to the difference in their circumstances with other workers. Or perhaps all workers should band together in solidarity due to the commonality of their circumstances.
No, they should just quit if they don’t like it. The reason they don’t is that they are getting extra compensation in the form of status and credential they are working towards, or legal immigration status for many foreign students. It is silly to ignore these and focus exclusively on financial compensation. As a thought experiment: imagine that these grad students were offered a deal, where their pay is doubled, the…
So your position is that they should quit instead of negotiate for better conditions? Who is that better for and why? You don't provide any argument for why that's a better course of action for anybody.
As somebody who benefits, indirectly, from their work, since their work benefits all of society, I'm much happier with them improving the working conditions and continuing to work, rather than quitting and losing that investment in their specialized knowledge.
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#75Gould: One account, one blog post, two tweets.
you have to start from somewhere :) why don't you give me a follow?
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#76No post body was provided.
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
They go without food, and double up and triple up in rooms that they rent. And though homelessness is more prevalent among undergrad students, it also happens to a lot of grad student workers too.
But I'm curious if that is a self imposed condition because they simply can't rent exactly where they want to. As an example, there was a googler famously living out of a moving truck, because he wanted a short commute and couldn't live right next to the campus in MTV. That was his choice, I don't think anyone would argue google doesn't pay people enough to afford rent.
How many hours of commuting a day amounts to living "exactly where you want to"?
If you can save $1000/month in rent by adding 200 hours of commute, why is that OK? And once you add in the extra thousands of miles of car travel, and having to pay for a car rather than being able to bike or take a bus, and it doesn't actually save any money...
Here are the estimated costs of living for various campuses, by three different methodologies:
https://twitter.com/weinberz/status/1596299620266962944?s=46...
The highest cost of living is where there's no escape to cheap housing by adding long commutes.
The people running these towns with high cost of living could add plenty of more housing, enough to reduce the cost of living, but have been spoiled brats about it. The level of entitlement among homeowners about not even seeing an apartment is absolutely astounding.
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#78I am making a concerted effort in my life to avoid buying things made in China. It’s harder than it sounds, and in the case of consumer electronics, impossible. If the point of this article is to make the reader feel bad for buying an iPhone, they’ve failed. Nearly every electronics device sold in the US is made or assembled in China, and most under even worse conditions than FoxConn.
> If the point of this article is to make the reader feel bad for buying an iPhone, they’ve failed. Nearly every electronics device sold in the US is made or assembled in China I would still say it's good to call attention to the problem even if there's no real solution for consumers.
Well, customers actually can buy less stuff and replace current technologic devices at a slower pace.
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#79I'd like to remind people about the terrible working conditions in extremely wealthy places such as California too. Right now, University of California grad students and researchers, who produce a massive proportion of science on the West coast, are on strike. In most locations, it's nearly impossible to pay rent on their stipends. Grad students may be in training, but they are also the source of nearly all the novel…
Comparing factory workers anywhere to grad students in California is remarkable. Grad students endure the conditions voluntarily. They would have tons of alternative options in the private sector if they chose to do that.
The difference of extremity does not make comparison unreasonable.
Exploitation of workers is at the core of both circumstances. Downplaying/ignoring one set of circumstances because it is lesser on the scale of abuse is the more remarkable point of view, in my opinion.
Re: The $205.4B Gulag
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
“This is not an identical situation to the delayed bonuses discussed in the article.” Not even close my friend. I would trust that instinct. People working 6-7 days a week, doing labor, in a factory, in shit conditions. Desperately clinging to each paycheck that comes along. Vs academic bureaucrats in one of the most Labor sensitive institutions in the world, who can’t afford the Bay Area…? The most expensive region…
> Not even close my friend. I would trust that instinct. Not sure what instinct you are referring to here. And just a reminder that when there's a strike, the people who go out to support are those with the least pay, or those who are already in unions. Trying to split grad students off from the rest of the labor force is not something that I am trying to do, if that's what you are implying. > Just a reminder, employ…
Let me ask you an honest question.
If you had to wake up tomorrow, as either a foxconn iPhone factory worker, or a Berkeley graduate student, which would you pick? How different do you think those experiences are?