"Mercedes has started trialing an undisclosed number of Apollo robots at a factory in Hungary. The country has experienced labor shortages for several years as workers migrate to Western Europe, with Audi and Mercedes having both expressed concerns regarding labor supply in 2016."
Raise wages?
It’s clearly intended to do more.
> Raise wages?
They have been [1], though not enough [2]. That said, it’s unclear whether the problem is ongoing emigration or past depletion.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/hungary-labour-carmakers-idU...
[2] https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/the-g...
I'm betting that the 'undisclosed number' has exactly one digit, and the robots doing actual work is not part of the reason why Mercedes is doing this
I think if the choice is between spending money now for r&d that enables future free labor or spending more now and forever on human labor it's obvious what choice a capitalist system incentives.
We are rapidly approaching an inflection point where the rules of capitalism don't work anymore. The road bifurcates there and I'm not sure that we are capable of getting the good ending.
This is clearly a pet project or from the marketing budget.
I assume this is a reference to a technological singularity [1].
At the point capitalism breaks down, virtually every other social institution does as well. Until we know what that future looks like, and what the new constraints are, it is impossible to put in place a better system.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
What are you talking about exactly? Can you elaborate?
Yeah but publishing videos of humanoid robots is proven to pump your car company stock to the moon. If Mercedes can also buy a cryptocurrency and a social media platform they're golden.
>Raise wages?
No no, you see we need open borders and visa free uncontrolled migration so companies have the upper hand and get to pick and choose whatever they want from the world labor pool until they find complacent workers on their terms, instead of having to pay locals competitively. Otherwise it's considered a labor shortage.
Hungary is in Schengen. Their workers left for higher-paying jobs. The company can’t move as easily because they already plopped down a plant. (Hungary is also one of the EU’s most migrant-sceptic members.)
Secondly, Mercedes moved to Hungary for cheap labor a while ago, and now that labor has fucked off to greener pastures Mercedes is now bitching that the cheap labor they came here for is no longer as cheap as they want it to be. If it wants to reattain those factory workers in Hungary they should pay competitively similarly to how they're retaining workers at their fabs in Germany. Why haven't they?
It's not a labor shortage, it's sucker/exploitable worker shortage.
>On the other hand, Hungary’s strict international migrant policy appears to weakening labour’s hand by encouraging automation.
Do you see what you're saying here: "If labor doesn't agree to be exploited as their masters demand, then they'll have to be replaced by robots if they can't be replaced by cheaper immigrant workers".
The workers' rights and benefits we enjoy today in the west, especially in Europe, didn't come from labor bending over to the demands of the business owning class, it cam from confrontations and labor sticking to their guns.
What is the difference? If Schengen were extended to the world, wouldn’t one describe that as uncontrolled movement?
> now that labor has fucked off to greener pastures(probably to Germany
What effect do you think that had on German wages? The analogy is Germany:EU::EU:world.
> labor doesn't agree to be exploited as their masters demand
You don’t find it curious that the automation is happening in the low-cost plants first?
There are a number of policy differences between Germany and Hungary, from collective-bargaining to legal stability. What’s interesting is how this case lets us isolate how Hungary’s migration policies undermine their workers in an unexpected way.
> didn't come from labor bending over to the demands of the business owning class, it cam from confrontations and labor sticking to their guns
We agree. My point is a collectively-bargaining Hungarian auto workforce would benefit from automating repetitive tasks (or giving them to non-Europeans). This shouldn’t be a conflict or confrontation. It’s turned into one due to Hungary’s politics redirecting anger at virtually non-existent migrants [1].
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2023/11/29/in-a-hu...
If you don't understand(or intentionally choose to ignore) the difference, rules and impact between hiring EU workers and non-EU workers, you are not arguing in good faith (against HN rules) and I will have to end the conversation here.
>What effect do you think that had on German wages? The analogy is Germany:EU::EU:world.
Germany and Hungary are EU members with equal rights. If Germans didn't want this they had the chance to veto Hungary's EU membership a long time ago, and unions in Germany could have also have a word on this, BEFORE it happened.
>My point is a collectively-bargaining Hungarian auto workforce would benefit from automating repetitive tasks (or giving them to non-Europeans).
How would that benefit Hungary? If nobody in Hungary wants to work for those jobs Mercedes has, it means they must be shit as workers there have better options. How are you fixing this by importing even more desperate and low skilled people willing to low-ball themselves to take shit jobs? How does that benefit society?
We're not talking about importing caretakers, teachers, doctors, nurses or builders, professions that society actually needs. We're talking about cheap exploitable workers for someone else's factory. Businesses wanting that can fuck off.
Automation is way better than importing unskilled desperate migrants willing to lowball themselves for crappy jobs. Automation builds valuable knowledge and skilled well paying jobs (look at Switzerland). What Mercedes wants here, being a perpetual sweatshop dependent on having the cheapest possible labor is not a good strategy for a western economy.