Photovoltaic Gou: How to get Foxconn out of the name of “sweatshop”

Just as people warmly celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Dragon, the leader of a super-carrier “aircraft carrier” shouted “headaches.” This man is Terry Gou. Terry Gou shouted "headaches" and could also look at the clues of Foxconn's recent developments in the mainland. The author burglarized that Guo’s “headache” has only just begun. The real “headache” is still behind.



After June of last year, Terry Gou worked continuously in the photovoltaic field. The first plan was to establish a joint venture company with GCL-Poly in Shanxi Province to enter the photovoltaic power station project. It also stated that it will invest in photovoltaic cell factories in Jiangsu, but since then it has not seen any substantial action. A person in charge of a Jiangsu photovoltaic company once questioned reporters that Foxconn was "putting satellites." "This market is so poor. Even if Foxconn comes in, it must be certain that it will not be possible to enter the photovoltaic industry in these two years."

However, Foxconn still came. A Foxconn photovoltaic business source said, "Although it is a crisis in the photovoltaic industry, but it is also the best time, because now is the lowest investment costs, including equipment, technology, talent, etc. are the lowest."

Previously, Hon Hai Group had conducted two years of research on the photovoltaic industry, and has carefully forecasted and estimated industrial prospects, markets, and profits. A Foxconn insider revealed that in 2009 the solar thermal industry made Terry Gom's idea of ​​entry. The subsequent investigation concluded that polysilicon in the upper reaches of the PV industry chain has the highest profits, but it is not staff-intensive, it is technology-led, and it is a huge investment. It is not suitable for Foxconn. "The downstream batteries and components are people-intensive industries, and the amount of investment does not need to be too large, and it can just take advantage of Foxconn's management and scale. Therefore, Guo eventually positioned the production direction as batteries and components."

Hon Hai has never been involved in the solar photovoltaic industry. However, Terry Gou said that the photovoltaic industry's technology is not yet very mature. "We need Foxconn's powerful design capabilities for industrial integration," and "Foxconn has the best direction and timing." Just when Gou wanted to make a big splash in the photovoltaic industry this year, it was time for Terry Gou to feel a headache.

At the close of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, some employees of the Foxconn Wuhan plant collectively expressed dissatisfaction with the factory due to the transfer of work. Because Foxconn's Wuhan plant does not change the contents of the contract, job position, location, salary and benefits, etc., it will arrange some employees to the relatively saturated production line. Wuhan factory believes that this is normal corporate human resources and job adjustments, but employees believe that the factory violated the labor contract. Coincidentally, some employees of the Foxconn Yantai Plant also expressed dissatisfaction with the factory due to the different pay of the same workers. Foxconn's Wuhan plant has more than 30,000 employees and is the world's largest desktop computer production base. The Foxconn Yantai plant has more than 60,000 employees.

According to Gou’s original management concept, hundreds of thousands of employees at the Shenzhen headquarters will be gradually transferred to the mainland factory. A local factory is about 50,000 people, which is easier to manage than hundreds of thousands of people. However, this is only a superficial reason. The deeper reason is that Gou’s large-scale layout in the central and western regions was aimed at reducing manpower costs. What he did not expect was that the employees who had been diverted from Shenzhen to Wuhan, Yantai, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, etc., had returned to their hometowns. Although they were still working for that job, the salary level was greatly reduced. This triggered a fellow worker. Different pay issues.

A female employee of the Foxconn Shenzhen factory complained after signing a work agreement for returning home that wages and social security benefits were unfair. "It seems that Henan workers are second-class citizens of Foxconn." Because her basic salary is lower than that in Shenzhen, medical insurance in Henan cannot be used in Shenzhen. Similar management problems seem to be solved by a non-Foxconn company. Even though Foxconn has factories and employees distributed in different cities in the Mainland, the scale of millions of employees is enough to make it a small society or a community. The psychological ownership of one million employees is still at Foxconn, and it tests Terry Gou.

Mr. Guo used the wishful thinking of “relocating factories in the Mainland and reducing manpower costs”. Now he has become a hot potato with different pay for equal work. Without wages, the tides of work everywhere have risen one after another; equal pay for equal work has made plans to cut costs. Many factors have forced Foxconn to move from a simple enterprise management model to a higher social management model. The social management pays more attention to humanistic care, which is inconsistent with the low cost pursued by OEM companies. The pain of this "headache" still doesn't know how to resolve it. Gou's time has gotten worse.

The second of "headaches" is the day-to-day revelation and criticism of Foxconn as an Apple "sweatshop."

At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, in the United States, Apple’s hometown, “New York Times” and “Newsweek” are performing a chorus of “Fat Sweat Factory” Foxconn’s chorus. historical record.

"The New York Times" throws a heavy "bomb" and publishes a lengthy in-depth report written by the reporter in front of the Foxconn factory in Chengdu. The article pointed out that Foxconn has assembled 40% of consumer electronics products on Earth and its most important customer is Apple. Most of the products Apple sold last year were assembled via Foxconn factories. The reporter wrote from the Foxconn Chengdu plant explosion incident in May last year about the 22-year-old worker Lai Xiaodong who was killed in the accident and how he became the largest, fastest and most sophisticated manufacturing system on the planet. "I have built an iPad with flesh and blood.

“Apple basically only cares about two things. One is to improve quality, and the other is to reduce costs. The welfare of workers is not good, and it has nothing to do with the interests of Apple.” Li Mingqi said. As a top management officer, Li worked for Foxconn, Apple’s most important manufacturing partner, for more than seven years and did not leave until two months before the explosion. He also supported the construction of a new factory in Chengdu, which was the factory that killed 22-year-old worker Lai Xiaodong in May last year. The New York Times reporter interviewed him specifically.

"You have two options, either to manufacture in a comfortable and safe work environment, or to introduce new products every year, to provide better quality, more powerful, faster and cheaper products, the latter needs a The Americans have a very difficult production environment, "the report said at the end. This has led to a wider range of more serious issues and thinking, the global enthusiastic Apple iPhone, iPad consumers, but also do not use in the harsh production environment with "fat and meat" of these products? The “resistance” voice shouted by environmentalists and groups is even higher than a wave.

The condemnation and boycott of Apple and its iPhone and iPad have been fermented by the media and people in the United States and around the world. In case the publicity of Apple has been awkward, Foxconn will suffer, and Guo Ting-ming, who is relying on Apple to eat, will not "have a headache". ?