I don't know why you see is workers living in dorms as being disgusting.
You have to compare these people against waiters who only make money when customers tipped enough, or stitched together two or three jobs back to back. These people have no leverage against small business owners. FoxConn workers may threaten suicide, the waiters in the US knows that suicide is not going to make an iota of difference to the bosses.
At FoxConn, workers earn enough to have money left over for savings. Can you honestly say that for the minimum wage hourlies you see everyday but care to ignore?
The fact is - as reported - even if the Apple or Corning wished to build the factories in the US, the center of gravity of manufacturing has moved to Asia. It is very difficult to shift. Structurally, the manufacturing world has changed. It is very the same reason why other countries struggle to reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or build a new financial center outside of New York.
I've worked at a lot of jobs where people have on-site company-provided housing; it's common in defense, oil and gas, mining, etc. in remote areas.
Depending on how it's done, I have no problem with it. It's definitely better if you're a high-paid worker than someone who might end up borrowing from a company, doing the company store thing, etc. which caused so many problems with labor in the past.
In a lot of cases, the housing is contracted out to specialist "man camp" providers, who run the entire facility and charge a per-resident rent to the employers. This probably removes a lot of the perverse incentives.
It's a great way to save on housing, commute, etc. if you're single/don't have a family. A lot of older people would maintain a home elsewhere and then do 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off type shifts, which doesn't save as much money, but does make work a lot more efficient.
Corporate apartments, dorms, etc. wouldn't be unreasonable for someone doing a startup or tech company in a place where rentals are inefficient -- it's pretty easy to rent an apartment and have some roommates in silicon valley, but if you were doing a startup in a rural/suburban place where people usually bought vs. rented, maybe the company should work something out for them.
I lived in a company-provided mining quarters for a few years. I see no problems with dorms at all. A lot of readers tend to think about slavery because it makes them feel better about America but the reality is that structurally US could no longer execute this way. In particular, the old issues of class warfare that drives union rules as well as management techniques are outmoded and calls for some fresh thinking.
The US used to have worker dorms (actually, more like company towns) back in the day. They often forced people to shop in company stores and otherwise exploited them. I don't know if that's happening in China--I have yet to read allegations of that--but it's one thing I wonder about, given the historical precedent. With long shifts like that, it's not surprising that they want to keep workers close. So it could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on whether and how they're taking advantage of the arrangement.
It isn't like that. Chinese factory workers are very mobile, as evidenced by the 20% year-on-year wages growth.
I recall an article on FoxConn that said they couldn't find enough local suppliers to produce enough eggs for their employees (Wikipedia said 800,000) that they started their own farms.
The reason people lived in dorms is not very different to why I lived in dorms when I worked on a mine site in Australia. A minesite needs to be where the ore is. Similarly, the FoxxConn factory needs to be close to where all the other manufacturers are.
The workers are usually from out of town. America already employs alot of people who live away from their families too. You run into them every day. They are the maids, the cleaners, the people who work in restaurants, the fruit pickers. Some of them only see their wifes/husbands/children once a year.
I don't know why you see is workers living in dorms as being disgusting.
You have to compare these people against waiters who only make money when customers tipped enough, or stitched together two or three jobs back to back. These people have no leverage against small business owners. FoxConn workers may threaten suicide, the waiters in the US knows that suicide is not going to make an iota of difference to the bosses.
At FoxConn, workers earn enough to have money left over for savings. Can you honestly say that for the minimum wage hourlies you see everyday but care to ignore?
The fact is - as reported - even if the Apple or Corning wished to build the factories in the US, the center of gravity of manufacturing has moved to Asia. It is very difficult to shift. Structurally, the manufacturing world has changed. It is very the same reason why other countries struggle to reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or build a new financial center outside of New York.