Apple and Foxconn Labour Reforms Effort Results in 12-Hour Shift and Night-Time Work for Women in Karnataka State!
Karma Global Accelerates as A Specialist to Provide Professional Advice, Direction, and Practical Solutions to Organizations with Problems That They Cannot Solve On Their Own!
Karma Management Global Consulting Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is one of the top 5 consultancy firms, established in the year 2004, with headquarters in the business district of Santacruz East, Mumbai, India, and full-scale operation in all the States, having about 200 direct and indirect staff on its roll, is a leading service provider for payroll and payroll compliances, outsourcing, facility services, HR services, Training & Development, Recruitment & Talent Acquisition, Legal and Para legal services, Disputes and Litigation Handling, Inspection Management and Liaising, Advisory Services, Social, Environment and Vendor Audits, Regulatory Compliances and Governance.
Karma Global over the past few months has become the cynosure of all eyes, in the sense that the galore of awards showered on Karma Global for its achievements in various fields, is unbelievable and overwhelming.
Compliance with labour and employment laws has become one of the most important issues that many establishments in India have to deal with. Many employment disputes result in litigation and take a prolonged time for effective conclusions. Karma Global is an Indian HR, Payroll, and Compliance Firm advising clients worldwide on local, regional, and global regulatory compliance in relation to their business goals, business strategies, and resolving disputes.
It gives valuable suggestions and advice to Corporate, Investors, Institutions, Contractors, Establishments, Industries, etc. on the need for lowering employment risk across all levels and adhering to the laws of the land. It has a lot of expertise on employment-related compliance issues, as well as day-to-day support for Human Resource Services with in-house Counsels.
Karma Global is also into employment agreements and policies, structuring of compensation and benefits, employment aspects of merger and takeover, etc.
Karma Global’s force, strength, and reach have brought in tremendous change over from its earlier image of being a consultancy firm in the period of 2000 to now embarking on setting strategies and practices abroad in highly regulated markets and competing in the global arena.
With India overtaking the UK to emerge as the fifth largest economy in the world and setting to become the third largest by 2029, Karma Global is poised for long-term value in terms of client outreach and giving state-of-the-art technology and excellent services to global clients better than ever before.
Apple and Foxconn Labour Reforms Effort Results in 12-Hour Shift and Night-Time Work for Women in Karnataka State!
Background:
China’s loss is India’s gain!
The legislation led to the introduction of laws that now allows 12-hour shifts, as well as night-time work for women, similar to company practices in China, the report said. Apple has been shifting production away from China after the country’s strict COVID-related restrictions disrupted the manufacturing of new iPhones and other devices in the country and also to avoid a big hit to its business from tensions between Beijing and Washington. The report comes a week after the Karnataka government said that Apple Inc.’s iPhones would soon be assembled in the state and that a total of 300 acres have been set aside for a factory.
A Look at the Investment Plans!
Karnataka govt approves $968 mln investment from Foxconn unit
Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, has been in discussions with Indian states but had not announced any investment plans so far in Karnataka now from the latest development, it seems maybe they will narrow it down to Karnataka in all likelihood. The Apple supplier had won an order to make Air Pods and planned to build a facility in India to manufacture wireless earphones.
Foxconn’s Rs 8,000 crore mobile phone unit among 18 investments cleared by Karnataka’s high-level panel
The new plant that will come up on a 300-acre plot near the Bengaluru international airport will be Foxconn’s largest such unit in India and is expected to add about 100,000 jobs over the next 10 years.
Foxconn and Apple draw up plans to manufacture Air pods in India
As per officials aware of the details, the government is looking to provide some financial support to remove the disability that currently makes manufacturing Air pods in India much more expensive compared to China and Vietnam.
Bill to amend Factories Act set in motion
The state’s legislature last month passed a Bill to amend the Factories Act, 1948, proposing to increase the time an employee can work on the shop floor in a day to 12 hours from nine, with breaks. Without a break, it can be up to six hours a day.
Their successful lobbying for new legislation means two-shift production can take place in India, akin to the two companies’ practices in China, their primary manufacturing base. The law gives the southern state one of the most flexible working regimes in India as the country aims to become an alternative manufacturing base to China.
The state, a center for India’s tech industry, last week passed an amendment to its factories act allowing for 12-hour shifts, as well as night-time work for women, who dominate electronics production lines in China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, but are underrepresented in India’s workforce. The legislation caps maximum working hours at 48 per week, but also expands the number of allowable overtime hours to 145 over a three-month period, from a previous 75.
Karnataka’s move is an attempt to seize the opportunity created by companies that are seeking to end an overreliance on Chinese manufacturing, following months of Covid-19 disruption that has shaken global supply chains.
The official said Karnataka had amended its labour law after “a lot of inputs” from Indian industry lobby groups and foreign companies, including Foxconn and Apple.
WAY FORWARD ….!
Notably, India has been making multiple exemptions for Apple in its manufacturing policies and all three major contractors of Apple have successfully applied for incentives under India’s PLI scheme.
Reports earlier this year stated that the Indian government may allow some of Apple’s Chinese vendors to set up manufacturing plants on a case-by-case basis in India.
It is also being said that due to the geopolitical tensions between China and the US, Apple has been steadily working towards moving most of its iPhone manufacturing to India.
Also, stringent COVID lockdowns in China that affected production at Foxconn facilities in China, which is the largest manufacturing unit for iPhones in the world, have also accelerated Apple’s plan to make a shift out of the country.
Noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, last month, in a tweet, said Foxconn would accelerate the expansion of capacity at its India plant.
“As a result, iPhones made by Foxconn in India will grow by at least 150 percent on-year in 2023, and the medium/long-term goal is to ship 40-45 percent of iPhones from India (versus the current 2-4 percent),”
A report by JP Morgan in September said that Apple plans to shift 25 percent of its iPhone production to India by 2025 in a bid to diversify its manufacturing base which is currently depends heavily on China.
“Our ability to attract global value chains (GVCs) in electronics manufacturing is more a factor of our policies like PLI than just favorable geopolitics. Competitiveness including on tariffs, preparedness to build large-scale factories and accompanying labour reforms and ensuring investment sentiment remains high at all times are key to our success,” India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said.
“It’s a long haul,” he added. Apple is a member of ICEA,” said Mohindroo.
CONCLUSION – Launch of PLI scheme by the Indian Government.
The Indian government launched the PLI scheme for smartphones in 2020. It came around a time when US-China tensions were at its peak and several companies including Apple were looking for an alternative to China. It was then the three big Apple contract manufacturers successfully applied for incentives under this scheme
As per the guidelines of the scheme, global companies are required to make a cumulative minimum investment of Rs 1,000 crore over four years and are not required to make an investment in the last year.
Mere 10 days after the global launch, Foxconn’s factory in Tamil Nadu started manufacturing iPhone 14. Also, Pegatron is making the latest device in its production unit in Tamil Nadu.
In India, Apple is currently manufacturing iPhone SE, iPhone 12, iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 (basic) models. All the Pro models which are sold in the country are imported.
iPad production to move in India
Apple reportedly is looking to move the production of some iPads to India to keep its supply chain healthy amid Covid-related disruptions at its manufacturing unit in China.
A report by CNBC quoted sources saying that Apple has “talked to Indian officials about locating some iPad manufacturing in the country as US-China relations sour and China’s Covid crackdowns snarl supply chains.”
Karma Global is a fully homegrown successful Outsourcing and Labour Laws Organization, operating both with contract employees as well as with permanent types of employees who are placed in numerous locations of global and domestic clients.
Karma Global has traditionally been a dynamic Regulatory Compliance driven organization with an integrated and up to mark the approach to HR Services.
Karma Global has always set its sights on keeping a tab and interpreting the regulatory changes in the manner required by authorities with a focus on the implementation of these new rules coupled with the adeptness to sophisticated technology, which has placed them in the top 5 consulting organizations today as far as HR Service Organization is concerned.
Karma Global’s experts sitting in various offices and catering to over 500 clients are fully intertwined with the workflow and processes that are leading most of its clients to convert their value drivers into the transformation of their businesses and objectives for effective results.
Karma Global’s technology securely integrates regulatory compliance across all types of businesses from trading to operations to investor services to financials and banks while also providing the clients access to these technologies with the power to control process operations with a dashboard and ready updates on the workflows done monthly and timely as per stipulated dates set by the authorities.
The greatest satisfaction comes from the outflow of communication to clients for future reviews and analysis of the monthly work done with data visualization tools that surface their activities done by the professional teams of Karma in its Corporate Headquarters in Mumbai and Branch Offices in Bangalore, Tamil Nadu, Gurgaon, Gujarat, Pune, etc.
Proprietary blog of Karma Global Tech Management LLC
This blog has been collated and compiled by the internal staff of Karma Global with the knowledge and expertise that they possess, besides adaptation, illustration, derivation, transformation, collection, and auto-generation from syndicated feeds and from various other sources, for its monthly newsletter Issue 10 of April 2023 and in case of specific or general information or compliance updates for that matter, kindly reach out to the Marketing Team – Kush@karmamgmt.com / yashika@karmamgmt.com