CWA predicts 28,900 jobs will be lost in T-Mobile merger with Sprint

The labor group claims that many stores will have to close under the combined company and that administrative jobs will be made redundant.

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Apple Stores employing contractors for on-site iPhone battery replacements

It seems that Apple Stores are struggling to handle the backlog of battery replacement orders they're getting with the hands they have on deck.

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Advocacy group says T-Mobile sales goals led to insurance fraud

CEO John Legere has built T-Mobile’s empire upon a mountain of unethical pressure tactics in the backrooms and show floors of its stores. It’s also padded by accounts and services siphoned into customers’ bills that no one asked for.

So claims Change to Win, an advocacy group for consumer and labor issues. And if there’s anything that is controvertible, it’s that the Un-carrier was the subject of the most complaints to the Federal Trade Commission in 2016.

Data requested under the Freedom of Information Act from the FTC shows that over the past three and a half years (that last bit marked the first half of 2016) T-Mobile consistently had the most consumer complaints out of the four major US carriers.

It had 21 complaints per million subscribers in 2013, then 29 in 2014. The number skyrocketed to 60 in 2015 and in the early part of this year alone, there were 95 complaints for every million subscriptions — going by the company’s numbers, that meant that over 6,400 complaints were lodged, or, a whopping 18 percent of the 35,000 or so complaints put against the industry over the past three-years-plus.

When it comes to fraudulent enrollment claims, T-Mobile customers topped AT&T, Sprint and Verizon — between 2013 and 2016, there were 10.1 complaints per million subscribers. Compare that to AT&T’s 7.1, Sprint’s 5.9 and Verizon’s 5.0.

These claims cover many an add-on that came unwanted or not transparently offered to the customer like an extra line, bundled accessories, data plan upgrades or, most commonly, device insurance. According to an online poll of T-Mobile customers conducted by Change to Win, 36 percent of the sample population of 2,200 respondents reported such extraneous fees and about 56 percent of them said that they paid more per month than the rate Little Magenta advertised.

Pressure has been mounting for sales representatives to push insurance onto customers one overt way or a covert other. 83 percent of a pool of 500 sales reps serving stores in six states told CtW that they were under the gun to cram services and products not explicitly requested by the customer.

One of a handful of associates gave their account of what stringent and heavily-monitored hourly goals did to colleagues:

The fact that there is such extraordinary pressure makes it so you can’t do what’s ethically required. I will do the best possible job that I can do, but the fact that [T-Mobile’s managers] put me in a compromising position and do unethical things is stressful. There’s so much stress and internalized anguish because we can’t meet our goals. And we know we’re smart and capable, but are made to feel inadequate on a daily basis. That’s why we have people out on [off-time ensured by the Family Medical Leave Act ] because of stress and such a high turnover in retail.

The JUMP! program that combined insurance with an early device upgrade scheme was a centerpiece for T-Mobile’s drive for growth, costing $9 or $12 a month. Several associates reported that they added JUMP! to newly-enrolled and unwitting customers to meet managers’ goals, then took the program off after a few days.

“No one says ‘I want to work at T-Mobile to do fraud. But a lot of reps do it because they want to keep their jobs and they want to get the pay they need. They aren’t bad or dishonest people, but there’s just a lot of pressure.”

All of these practices, CtW asserts, account for T-Mobile’s recent props in average revenue per user. Workers are petitioning Legere to address these issues. He has yet to publicly respond.

The nation’s third-largest network by subscriber base has faced its share of consumer controversy with claims against its “no-contract” offerings when it first began its Un-carrier campaign in 2013. Labor conditions have also been a worrisome, ongoing topic.

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An iPhone made in the USA? Apple may have convinced Foxconn to move

President of Sharp and senior Foxconn executive Tai Jeng-wu mentioned to students at his alma mater recently that he would be interested in building factories in the US if it meant keeping Apple happy.

Fast forward past the most surprising election of Donald Trump to the nation’s presidency. The looming specter of his trade policy — with a potential tariffs war with China and his desire to see Apple “build its damn computers” at home — may have convinced Infinite Loop to bite.

If what the Nikkei Asian Review is reporting from its sources is true, then we may have come to a point where the price for manufacturing the iPhone in the US has become right for all parties involved. But Apple’s request to its two major Taiwanese contractors that assemble the iPhone, Foxconn and Pegatron, to consider and blueprint a move to the US was reportedly made back in June.

“Foxconn complied, while Pegatron declined to formulate such a plan due to cost concerns,” one source claimed.

Apple’s biggest semiconductor partner, TSMC, is also said to be considering US plans.

Lax labor regulations in China have meant that many industrial companies have set up in the mainland in order to employ thousands while keeping costs down. The iPhone 7 is purported to have a $225 bill of materials.

Of concern with the move is the slack period required to build up the infrastructure needed before iPhone manufacturing operations can begin in the US and whether a President Trump will swing for a campaign promise of putting an all-imports tariff on China of 45 percent.

Apple CEO Tim Cook also mentioned in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview that the US does not have enough skilled nor interested workers for the company to tap into for tedious, on-your-feet assembly line jobs these days. With other US labor, economic and land development regulations in place, the cost to make an iPhone could, at the very least, double in the short term.

Whether the “Made in China” ink stays or goes, all of this could mean that the $649 iPhone may be no more — shipping components, parts and finished products back and forth across the Pacific may prove too heavy a burden for Apple to maintain its current base price level. The knock-on effect when exporting the iPhone to other countries could further dampen demand for what can arguably be considered the world’s most in-demand single smartphone. And here we are, worried about how the iPhone 8 might look like.

The colloquial Big Mac price index may soon be replaced with the iPhone price index and it may be the one gauge the political impact on global consumer spending.

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Labor activists slam Apple for higher demands, cost-cutting regime

Apple’s supply chain for the iPhone and other devices has been suffering as sales have slid over the past year. Worse yet, as Apple continues to demand lower prices for more labor and more products, we see companies trying to push back on the giant.It’s still not enough for the people toiling at the factories, though, according to advocacy group China Labor Watch.CLW ...

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NGO: Apple, Samsung, Microsoft battery supply chains have child labor in them

Cobalt. It doesn’t just strike your eyes with a certain pitch of blue: it’s a key component of our smartphones’ lithium-ion batteries. But it seems that the labor used to obtain this mineral has been poorly regulated. And Amnesty International is implicating Apple and Samsung — both companies having their own shares of labor problems — as well as Sony, Microsoft, Huawei, LG, ZTE, Lenovo and eight ...

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Samsung agrees to labor reforms after illnesses, deaths

Apple has its own problems keeping up with labor conditions. It’s been also been a longstanding issue for Samsung Electronics since 2007, when Hwang Yu-mi, an employee at one of the company’s chipmaking facilities, died of work-related leukemia. SHARP, a Korean workers’ advocacy group, claims that there are more than 200 sickened employees and 71 deaths up to the end of September.Now comes word of an agreement between Samsung and representatives of the victims and their families in ...

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