bricolage
1st August 2011, 21:00
Very interesting article about Foxconns proposal to bring in one million robots. Despite it initially being linked the employee suicides I think a section later on is far more telling;
"I don't think this is a one-off. Foxconn is often seen as a bellwether of global manufacturing in China," said Alistair Thornton of IHS Global Insight, suggesting other companies would follow suit. "Workers can command higher wages and are less willing to settle for lower ones. You can no longer just double your workforce to double your output."Wages in the region have risen by around a third over the past year, experts estimate, as the proportion of young workers shrinks and their expectations rise.
Manufacturers are seeking to improve productivity, or shift production inland or overseas, as Foxconn has already done, with huge new plants in Chengdu, Chongqing and Zhengzhou and one site in Vietnam. "As labour costs rise, companies will have to invest more in automated facilities. But we shouldn't get carried away; there is still a lot of cheap labour out there," said Tom Miller, of Beijing-based economic consultancy GK-Dragonomics.
Foxconn said last year it had overhauled conditions and more than doubled salaries (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/28/foxconn-plant-china-deaths-suicides) at its vast plant in Longhua, Guangdong — from 900 to 2,000 yuan — after coming under fire over suicides by workers there.It mentions at the end that the wage increases were as a result of the suicides and I can't comment on that but was seems most important is that this is a reaction to increased wage costs and an attempt to re-assert a higher rate of profit. I'd be interested to hear some of the more economically clued up people here gives some views on this in terms of a scaling down of variable capital to be put into fixed capital and the implications of this.
A bit later on indicates that this might not actually go through;
Others questioned whether the announcement was genuine. "I am suspicious," said Liu Kaiming, of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, which supports workers in Guangdong.
"Machines can do it, but think about the cost … overall, workers are still much cheaper. This is probably just for sensational effect, [to] put pressure on workers."
Prof Huang Renmin, director of the institute of labour market research at the China Institute of Industrial Relations, agreed.
"This is the trick capitalists use to threaten workers," he said.This in itself seems very possible, similar to how the threat of privatisation can be used to force workers in public sectors to accept their lot and so forth. In this case I still think it is worth considering the severity of this, if numbers of workers can theoretically be replaced by machines is this going to become a more common way of forcing down class terms and conditions?
Essentially it is best summed up here;
"It's a positive development in that it will get rid of the really mind-numbing jobs that are done by unskilled workers and could help to improve skill levels. You still need people to manage and operate these machines," he said. "The question is, how many people are going to be laid off and are they going to be reassigned?"With this in mind if automation can both a) put workers out of jobs and b) be used as a threat to workers, could it also c) be part of a class demand in the here and now, ie. greater automation but no reduction in jobs, wages or conditions?
Original article; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/01/foxconn-robots-replace-chinese-workers
"I don't think this is a one-off. Foxconn is often seen as a bellwether of global manufacturing in China," said Alistair Thornton of IHS Global Insight, suggesting other companies would follow suit. "Workers can command higher wages and are less willing to settle for lower ones. You can no longer just double your workforce to double your output."Wages in the region have risen by around a third over the past year, experts estimate, as the proportion of young workers shrinks and their expectations rise.
Manufacturers are seeking to improve productivity, or shift production inland or overseas, as Foxconn has already done, with huge new plants in Chengdu, Chongqing and Zhengzhou and one site in Vietnam. "As labour costs rise, companies will have to invest more in automated facilities. But we shouldn't get carried away; there is still a lot of cheap labour out there," said Tom Miller, of Beijing-based economic consultancy GK-Dragonomics.
Foxconn said last year it had overhauled conditions and more than doubled salaries (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/28/foxconn-plant-china-deaths-suicides) at its vast plant in Longhua, Guangdong — from 900 to 2,000 yuan — after coming under fire over suicides by workers there.It mentions at the end that the wage increases were as a result of the suicides and I can't comment on that but was seems most important is that this is a reaction to increased wage costs and an attempt to re-assert a higher rate of profit. I'd be interested to hear some of the more economically clued up people here gives some views on this in terms of a scaling down of variable capital to be put into fixed capital and the implications of this.
A bit later on indicates that this might not actually go through;
Others questioned whether the announcement was genuine. "I am suspicious," said Liu Kaiming, of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, which supports workers in Guangdong.
"Machines can do it, but think about the cost … overall, workers are still much cheaper. This is probably just for sensational effect, [to] put pressure on workers."
Prof Huang Renmin, director of the institute of labour market research at the China Institute of Industrial Relations, agreed.
"This is the trick capitalists use to threaten workers," he said.This in itself seems very possible, similar to how the threat of privatisation can be used to force workers in public sectors to accept their lot and so forth. In this case I still think it is worth considering the severity of this, if numbers of workers can theoretically be replaced by machines is this going to become a more common way of forcing down class terms and conditions?
Essentially it is best summed up here;
"It's a positive development in that it will get rid of the really mind-numbing jobs that are done by unskilled workers and could help to improve skill levels. You still need people to manage and operate these machines," he said. "The question is, how many people are going to be laid off and are they going to be reassigned?"With this in mind if automation can both a) put workers out of jobs and b) be used as a threat to workers, could it also c) be part of a class demand in the here and now, ie. greater automation but no reduction in jobs, wages or conditions?
Original article; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/01/foxconn-robots-replace-chinese-workers