Jobs v/s Ideal Workplace

Recently, there were a lot of articles that tore into Foxconn’s factory at Sriperumbudur, which has a predominantly female workforce. Raghu S Jaitley summarizes the view of those articles:

“Restrictive working conditions, poor food, low pay, long hours, semi-skilled work, lack of unions - you get the gist.”

 

Jaitley then makes an interesting comparison to how the call center and BPO industry was described two decades back:

“The mental and physical toll on workers doing the night shift, long hours and low pay, the mental stress of faking an accent and getting abused by customers on the other end of the call, the low quality of work with no future prospects, the packing of workers in a cramped van that was used for commuting to the offices and the unhealthy food served in the canteens. And, of course, no unions.”

Sound similar to the Foxconn factory? Fast forward, he says, to present day. BPO’s moved up the value chain, the kind of work improved, and career opportunities are so much better.

 

The point?

“Growth is the single biggest moral imperative for India at its stage of development. We can try to optimise for many other ideals and virtues, but if they come to us at the cost of growth, we must learn to ignore them. Because lack of growth will make even those ideals worse than where they are today.”

 

He then looks at Foxconn. Why does it spend money on building hostels (optional anyway), and in ferrying employees back and forth to work? Because public transport systems are terrible, and can’t be relied upon to reach anywhere on time. Does anyone really believe a company wants to take on these roles?

 

The ratio of women at the workplace in India is low. For multiple reasons. Sure, the company may have picked women because they can pay them lesser than the men. But is this societal problem something Foxconn created? Or do choices like these, while done for purely selfish corporate reasons, alleviate the employment problem in general and women in particular?

 

Are Foxconn’s work conditions worse than the average workplace in India for semi- or barely-skilled workers? That is the correct metric to use, not some idealised idea of how the workplace should be like, he argues.

 

And lastly, Jaitley says, consider the alternative for women who choose to work at Foxconn. Is working in the fields really better? Sitting at home? Do other local industries provide better pay?

 

On the one hand, we complain that there aren’t enough jobs. And then we want the perfect workplace. Get real, he says. The likes of Foxconn are a start. They are an improvement over the alternative that exists for many today. If history is any guide, such things gradually improve with time.

 

Pranay Kotasthane adds in the same vein:

“Employees working in these factories are choosing an option amongst the alternatives they have at their disposal… The trade-offs between employment and moralising are real.”

 

I couldn’t agree more.