Chinese iPad Factory Staff Forced To Sign 'No Suicide' Pledge 537
An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Foxconn facilities in China, used to manufacture the iPhone and iPad, were forced to sign a pledge not to commit suicide after over a dozen staff killed themselves over the last 16 months. The revelation is the latest in a series of findings about the treatment of workers at Foxconn plants, where staff often work six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime in a month, and live in dormitories that look and feel like prison blocks."
Pffft (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Pffft (Score:5, Informative)
FTFA: "And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages."
So, there is some form of enforcement after all. The legality of this, I couldn't say.
Re:Pffft (Score:5, Insightful)
The legality of this, I couldn't say.
I'm sure China doesn't give a fuck. If they did, requiring an employee to work 70 hours a week for $10 a day and share living space with two dozen other employees wouldn't be legal in the first place.
Re:Pffft (Score:4, Insightful)
Why wouldn't it be legal? After all, it is about 1000 times better than folks living on the factory farms have it where it is 12 hours of work for a handful of rice.
The rural folks in China have it really, really bad and they are even more motivated to move to the city than the folks in Mexico are to come to the US. After all, in Mexico you might get $2 for a day's work and have your own shack. People are quite willing to cross the desert with signs that pretty much say "If you continue you will die" because they can make $50 a day and feed their entire family on one person's wages.
In China a little thing like suicide isn't going to deter them in the slightest. I suspect as long as they aren't hit by falling bodies they are perfectly OK with a 1% chance they might really want to commit suicide if they take a crappy job.
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Why wouldn't it be legal?
I apologize for being Captain Obvious here, but it's not legal because it's illegal - which is to say, Chinese law mandates 40-hour day, and all businesses officially comply.
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Re:Pffft (Score:4, Informative)
Many [nytimes.com] things are [bloomberg.com] made by [anandtech.com] Foxconn. Also from what I've read, their suicide rate is quite a bit lower than the average suicide rates in Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturing plants. We only hear/care about this one because they make i-devices. I mean come on, the very title of this summary should be a glaring indicator why anyone cares. Foxconn is not a "chinese iPad factory," its a massive global technology company manufacturing pipeline.
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While I understand the sentiment, I wonder how much chinese technology you are bound to encounter in all the technological gadgets you own. Be it Computers, phones or whatever. Can you vouch for the working conditions of the workers in each case?
What about clothing?
In my case. I'm 99% ignorant and am forced to take price-quality relation as practically the unique factor of a purchase.
Fyi, third world, s40 phone (posting from it).
Re:Pffft (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop your silly neo-Marxist comments. The only reason those workers put up with $10 daily and those dorms is simply because their other alternatives stink even more.
My mistake. They are clearly living in a capitalist paradise.
Re:Pffft (Score:4, Funny)
It isn't right to treat factory workers like they work in IT just because they are building high-tech equipment.
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or how about the KRUPP way? that's the industry what ford tried to copy but failed, because he forgot about the worker. you know what's the best way to shaft communists? give better benefits and education so they can work better and also not feel so lost in a mindless job with no end in sight.
do those foxconn drones have any possibility to build up skills and creativity? hell no. even the work they do would be better done by machines - but it's simpler to take a huge mortage and build a city and use interch
Re:Pffft (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA: "And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages."
So, there is some form of enforcement after all. The legality of this, I couldn't say.
I don't think I'm violating a NDA here, because this is a "well known" liability limiting move.
So anyone killed by, say, an overhead crane dropping a pallet on their heads, can be ruled a suicide, and they promise their family only gets legal minimum in damages. I'm only slightly tongue in cheek with the crane example, as the company would rule the victim should have been looking up, only a suicidal person would not run away as the pallet falls on them, etc. Pretty much anything other than blatant 1st deg murder with numerous witnesses would qualify.
How much legal weight something like this holds is mysterious. If it intimidates just one victims family, it certainly pays for the cost of paperwork.
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Story about China. Did you miss that?
All bets are off! (Score:2, Informative)
Remember, this is China. The deck is stacked against the common man. The courts probably would enforce a contract that would be unenforceable in Western countries.
Re:All bets are off! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, there's some pretty big differences from what I can tell.
The USA calls itself "capitalist", which may or may not be true (after all, corporations operate using privately-owned capital), but a more accurate term is "fascist", as the government is in the pockets of the corporations. There are not many state-owned corporations, however; the power only goes one way: the corporate puppets in government do the bidding of their masters, and that's it. Basically, the US government is thoroughly corrupt,
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The rental agreements that I use have a section that describes the rights of minors to live in the space (and they are listed by name). If they are not minors, they are required to sign the lease (you are not allowed to have guest for longer than 2 weeks without permission, no matter their relationship to you).
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If they were smart, they would destroy large amounts of expensive equipment on their way out. That would change things very quickly. Just offing themselves is only embarrassing.
And of course this assumes they can't get a job somewhere else (because that would be the truly smart thing to do).
This entire thing makes me a little embarrassed to use an Iphone tho it is required by work. But it says that Apple is fairly evil. This should have been resolved before anyone died.
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Apple is evil, Dell is evil, Google is evil, Microsoft is evil....
They're all bastards really...not one of them care one lick outside of keeping their shareholders happy. And all that keeps the shareholders happy is profit & a rising stock price.
Nobody in the business world gives one shit about any of the pleebs...they're just resources to get the job done to make money to keep the shareholders happy.
Not evil (Score:5, Insightful)
A corporation exists to maximize profit. So if you're going to anthropomorphize a company it's not evil, it just doesn't care about evil.
So the proper term would be sociopathic. [wikipedia.org]
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During peak periods of demand for the iPad, workers were made to take only one day off in 13.
To me that says the owners of Foxconn promised Apple a certain number of iPads and probably promised their other clients stuff and they made sure their people made that stuff damnit. It also seems pretty clear that the factories are the ones forcing people to sign th
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The reason workers choose to work at Foxconn is precisely because it is better to work for them than to not have a job at all, or even work for another company. As much as we might talk about China being communist, this situation is entirely about capitalism. The worker's labor is worth precisely how much he or she is being paid, and the work conditions they must suffer through, otherwise Foxconn would have to better the wage and conditions to attract workers. Now, perhaps China as a whole isn't the greates
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This entire thing makes me a little embarrassed to use an Iphone tho it is required by work.
What in makes you think that other companies are any better in this regard? Apple isn't the only company that contracts with foxconn you know. That said, the apple pr department should be ashamed for not having a better response.
Apple is probably the best in the industry for working conditions in China and they do publicize that. Newspapers, however, don't care because Apple's popularity makes demonizing them sell more papers, even if it's doing so by misinformation. Apple audits their suppliers, publishes the audits openly and actually takes corrective measures. They dropped a number of suppliers because of poor working conditions, too long of hours, or child labor. They forced others to change policies and provide compensation to
They've got nets outside the dorms (Score:3)
Re:Pffft (Score:4, Insightful)
If they were forced to sign it, then it was signed under duress and it's not enforceable. :)
In America that's true, but I have my doubts about China.
Re:forced (Score:5, Funny)
"Sign this Pledge not to commit suicide."
"No."
"I said, sign it! Or Else!"
"Or else what? You going to kill me for not signing a pledge that says I won't do it myself?"
Re:Pffft (Score:4, Funny)
If they were forced to sign it, then it was signed under duress and it's not enforceable. :)
Since you've found the loophole, the anti-suicide provisions don't apply to you. We're pleased to inform you that you've been transferred to the energy services division which will be happy to schedule your suicide. We think you have a bright future in biofuel.
Re:Pffft (Score:5, Informative)
they didn't "have" to sign it.... just like you don't "have" to have a job that decides they don't want you to smoke ... at all. They're more than free to get another job. There's only 1.3 BILLION other people competing! In many ways the US labor rules are at the far end of the "civilized" countries when it comes to what we allow "by the books".
I don't see what's wrong with the 12 hours, 6 days. During peak auto season most UAW workers work those kind of hours... sometimes even 7 days. I work at a steel company and guys in the mills do that all the time. Many, many jobs in the USA work those kind of hours... in fact it's the norm... nursing, steel mills, auto makers, cops. That's in the USA with Union jobs, what's the big deal. The only real difference in the USA that these people have nice houses with big mortgages and drive 45 minutes each way to work. Oh, and after working all those hours your cut-rate health insurance blames "your lifestyle" on all the health problems you have, not to mention the huge divorce rate in those jobs.
Realize when you hear nurses or steel workers get those big paychecks they really are SAVING their companies tons of money. Companies in the US should be hiring 1/3 more workers in a lot of cases.. but having existing workers work 1/2 more comes out cheaper because "fixed costs" per employee (Health, workman's comp, vacation, etc) all are based on a 40 hour week. Sure they get time and a half, or even double time... and how much is just health insurance rising? weigh that against consistently working massive overtime and even the spikes in insurance costs are trivial to what the company is making per employee. Don't believe a word of the "US Unions are ruining things".... remember non-union tech employees got "reclassified" so WE can work those kinds of hours for "salary"...
Don't see what all the outrage is because it happens in China... the only reason so much work goes there is that their hourly wage is less... and their countries have national health insurance so the companies don't have to pay it. By the time they get employees that can work like Americans though, they are getting close to paying the same kind of money once language and shipping come into account.
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I own 50% of my company. We have a few employees that work between 8 and 10 hours a day, and some other part time (4 to 6 hours).
My associate and I get to the office at 8 A.M, and stay there until midnight most days, we work Monday through Saturday, but we also answer our phones and get some telecommute hours on Sundays. We rarely take any holidays off, and since there is no god, we even work on christmas. Last year, I only took 6 days of vacations.
We work harder than any of our employees, and we like it th
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That'll show them (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, they better not kill themselves OR ELSE!
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Yeah, they better not kill themselves OR ELSE!
Or else their family will get bugger-all compensation because the employee signed an agreement not to commit suicide, whereas they might have stood a chance of getting more otherwise.
This *might* or might not work in the Chinese legal system, but I wouldn't bet large amounts against it. And (as others have already said) even if all it does is put a few people off by making it *appear* harder to sue, it's probably worth the relatively small cost of inclusion.
An example of how, even- well, especially- on
Ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
See this is why I don't understand everyone bitching about the American economy being broken. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't... but one thing is for sure. We are using paid employee's to try and compete with a country that essentially uses prisoners to power there economy. Whos confused about why we are losing??
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Informative)
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All made by prisoners who were probably put in to jail thanks to our ridiculous "War on Drugs" and politicians who want to appear tough on crime.
Without arguing that the "War on Drugs" is a good idea or in some way fair, don't you have to be at least a little stupid to get involved with drugs knowing that you could spend your days alternating between having to telemarket and being pounded in the ass as a result?
I mean, there's lots of things I'd like to do that I don't agree with the laws on, but orange jumpsuit is a terrible look for me and so I don't.
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Re:Ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
That's probably why you don't see a lot of white collar people selling drugs.
Not to derail the topic too far, but I see white collar people selling addictive drugs that give the user a high all the time. It's just that when we're talking about drugs that are approved by big pharma/big government, the dealer is called a doctor. And believe me, doctors act just like drug dealers, too. I had one doctor start to tell me he would call a hit out on me if I couldn't make his alpha pager work when it was turned off. According to the board of directors at a local hospital, it may not be safe for me to be one of their patients because of a dispute they had about a bill. Doctors are drug dealers, little more, and once you figure that you, a lot of things start to make sense about the prohibition of substances such as marihuana. The medical establishment doesn't want competition from a substance that doesn't cost a dime to grow.
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I'd think someone with such a fantastic Carlin quote would realize that George also had a great comment related to this very problem:
And you know, in this country, now there are alot of people who want to expand the death penalty to include drug dealers. This is really stupid. Drug dealers aren't afraid to die. They're already killing each other every day on the streets by the hundreds. Drive-bys, gang shootings, they're not afraid to die. Death penalty doesn't mean anything unless you use it on people who are afraid to die. Like... the bankers who launder the drug money. The bankers, who launder, the drug money. Forget the dealers, you want to slow down that drug traffic, you got to start executing a few of these fucking bankers. White, middle class Republican bankers. ... You start execut- you start nailing one white banker per week to a big wooden cross, you're going to see that drug traffic begin to slow down pretty fucking quick. Pretty fucking quick- you won't even be able to buy drugs in schools and prisons anymore!
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don't you have to be at least a little stupid to get involved with drugs knowing that you could spend your days alternating between having to telemarket
You could get hit pretty hard for illegal filesharing or drinking during prohibition, too, but at the end of the day, when the law's bullshit, fuck it.
and being pounded in the ass
Myth?
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I know I've Godwin'd the thread, but it illustrates my point: it's a bad idea to blindly follow
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Nobody is confused. everybody just wants to pretend we can compete with that. We can't.
Either we have to lower standards for our workers, or they have to raise theirs.
Either solution is probably going to involve and armed revolution somewhere along the line, one way or another.
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Having put in multiple 70 hour weeks lately (and having co-workers talk about their 80 hour weeks) it seems like we are losing that battle.
But their wages are going up 20% to 100% per year. Given the very low starting bases, it will be about 8 years before it just doesn't make sense to make a lot of products there and then ship them over here.
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Or, we could bring back what we used to have before the globalists took over circa 1970 and the standard of living here stopped growing: tariffs.
Although, I suppose throwing the globalists out to do that would probably require an armed revolution too.
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Or, we could bring back what we used to have before the globalists took over circa 1970 and the standard of living here stopped growing: tariffs.
How do you plan on explaining to consumers that the majority of their goods will now cost significantly more, perhaps several times as much? Ok, better question, how will a politician explain that, and still get re-elected?
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In order to enact tariffs, the US would have to pull out of the WTO. If the US tried to block Chinese imports with high tariffs China would be forced to exhert their control over the US economy. You see, China owns the US. Way more than 50% of the country is indirectly owned by the Chinese because of their loans.
If the US insisted and told China their loans were worthless nobody would trade with the US anymore because they couldn't be trusted.
If we insisted on tariffs on Chinese goods the result would li
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Who's losing? Apple? Us consumers who get lower prices thanks to exploitation of the workers?
This is global capitalism. It sure screws many of us middle class westerners a bit too, but the capitalists h
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>>>a country that essentially uses prisoners to power their economy.
This is why I think the US and EU should block all goods coming from this company (Foxconn) and other companies that treat their employees like prisoners/paid slaves. We can't enforce human rights in China, but we can make the decision to boycott the goods, just as would boycott "blood diamond" companies.
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is foxconn while notable is better than many other places because Apple is forcing them to step up. you don't hear about Acer's companies or another's because they are generally doing nothing.
Apple is forcing foxconn to step up and treat it's people better. That is why it is news.
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Could you remind me which country was so greedy 20 years ago that decided to use cheap Chinese labour despite that they knew these were commies treating their citizens no better than Ghaddafi now?
I recon, there were various countries, but think that there was one major source of investment.
You created this monster. Learn to live with it or do something about it - but stop whining.
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to power there economy. Whos confused about why we are losing??
Because some of us don't know the correct usage of "there" and "their"?
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I'm sure that will work (Score:3, Funny)
I bet that will work as well as that pledge to not use sarcasm I signed.
Effectiveness (Score:5, Interesting)
Foxconn != Apple (Score:5, Informative)
Why every time Foxconn is mentioned it is automatically associated with Apple. Foxconn manufacturers for large number of clients including Logitech and Dell. Maybe I'm just being new again?
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Perhaps the ones who work on products for Dell and Logitech don't have to sign the pledge?
After all, they don't have the pressure of building iPads--the magical device. Your Dell doesn't work? So what else is new? On the other hand, you make a mistake building an iPad and some Fanboi will cry all over the Internet. That's a lot of pressure.
On the other hand, building Dells day in and day out might cause me to consider suicide...
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Yes, but the ones working on Apple products are also paid more than the ones working on any other product, per Apple's requirements. (not that is this excuses them being forced to work overtime, voluntarily or pressured into it etc).
Apple does have a code of conduct for its suppliers, but just how effective it is is up to the individual suppliers. Even if it was all done locally (ie, on US soil) you still face that issue - just look at the slaughterhouses and general fast food industry - the conditions at F
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You joke, but the cattle that get slaughtered have better protections and laws for their wellbeing.
Working at a US slaughterhouse is not fun - rife with boarderline-illegal and awful practices. It is at least as bad as working at foxconn.
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Apple also likes to sell their stuff as special (Score:5, Interesting)
They are very annoyed that they have to admit their products are built elsewhere. If you take a look on any device it'll always say where it was made or assembled. That is required by law. Almost all devices, that's all it says about that. However Apple stuff? Right before that they have to note "Designed in California by Apple." Reason is they want to try and deflect from the "Made in China" part. They don't want their Mac to be just another thing made in China.
Well, that makes the stories particularly juicy to the press when they relate to Apple and China. Most companies aren't bothered. They stamp the country of assembly on the box and call it good. So calling them out on it does nothing. You call out MSI on their motherboards being made in China and they'll say "Ummm yes, yes they are. Says so right on the board."
Also there's the fact that it seems Apple puts additional secrecy pressure on Foxconn and that their employees have been subject to additional restrictions and scrutiny due to Apple leaks. You don't see that with other products Foxconn makes. They don't have to keep everything super secret since companies don't put on the big show and their products are usually known well in advance of launch.
Not disagreeing on that (Score:3)
Just saying that Apple's love for downplaying the China thing is why the media loves to jump on it. When you freely and openly admit to something, it isn't much of a story to the press because they can't make it a scandal. When you try and keep it more hush hush, they'll like it just because they are "revealing" something.
six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime (Score:2)
My current job has me doing this. 7 days of 12+ hours. And 45 OT hours each week, or 200 per month.
(jumps off roof)
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Wow, that's almost as bad as working at EA.
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Clerk 1: Two people ... three people have fallen to their almost certain death!
Clerk 2: Must be a board meeting.
Monty Python brilliancy [youtube.com]
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Now if you said, for an average wage of about $7 daily, I would have felt for you.
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My current job has me doing this. 7 days of 12+ hours. And 45 OT hours each week, or 200 per month. (jumps off roof)
What does your hourly rate work out to after overtime pay? I'll bet it's more than theirs (adjusted for local cost of living, of course).
What a way to treat the symptoms (Score:4, Insightful)
That's akin to saying, "hey, when you kill yourself, they know we are torturing you, so please stop killing yourself".
Who's signing the "only work so many hours" pledge?
Won't that make it worse? (Score:3)
It seems to me this provides extra motivation.
If you try to commit suicide, but fail, you're now in breach of contract and out of a job. Which means two things: If you're going to try at all, it's best to ensure it succeeds. And if you still fail you've now got an extra motivation for giving it another try.
Then there's that just signing this thing is probably harmful. Somebody could find it to be an additional motivation to commit suicide out of spite. After all, few things are more demeaning than somebody else asserting such control over your own life, and killing yourself anyway is about the biggest statement one could make about that.
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Then there's that just signing this thing is probably harmful. Somebody could find it to be an additional motivation to commit suicide out of spite.
People who commit suicide out of spite are, how do I say it, "unbalanced" ?
One belief is that Foxconn people commit suicide to earn a windfall for their family. I don't know how true or untrue this is, but such a document will remove this motivation. This can't be bad.
But of course if someone still wants to kill oneself, there isn't much that can be done
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"iPad" factory... troll headline (Score:3, Informative)
As usual, especially for the Daily Hate Mail, the title is extremely misleading. It's been covered on slashdot before, but describing Foxconn as an iPad factory, or even an Apple factory is like calling Amazon a "Stephen King bookstore".
The article strongly infers that the plant *only* makes Apple stuff.
I also see no mention in the article about Apple's responses to this, with higher wages paid per employee (compared to the same employees in the same factory making Xboxes, PS3s, Nintendo Wiis, Android handsets, televisions, microwaves, etc etc), although they did talk about how little they were earning, and inspections and rules set out in a code of conduct (although, enforcing this is clearly difficult).
So, nothing really to see here - typical of Daily Mail reporting. I'm just amazed they didn't try to work in a "gay, single-parent-mother asylum seeker claiming benefits and lottery money, causing cancer" angle somehow.
very old news (Score:2)
Apparently this has been going on since May 25, 2010 (almost 1 year ago)...
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2010/05/26/258184/p1/Apple-maker.htm [chinapost.com.tw]
http://www.chinasourcingnews.com/2010/05/31/552238-foxconns-working-conditions-in-china-under-scrutiny/ [chinasourcingnews.com]
Suicide nets (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-suicide nets were put up around the dormitory buildings on the advice of psychologists.
If you have to put up suicide nets and make people sign contracts promising not to kill themself then you're doing it wrong.
Re:Suicide nets (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have to put up suicide nets and make people sign contracts promising not to kill themself then you're doing it wrong.
So why are we still importing anything that this company makes?
And if China's laws can't protect workers from this company, then why are we still importing anything China makes?
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Re:Suicide nets (Score:5, Insightful)
Or do you just pick the cheapest one that meets your minimum critera? It's not like manufacturers put "Made with Slave Labor!" on the package.
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Because we care more about getting cheap crap from Walmart than we do about a bunch of factory workers on the other side of the world.
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Sucide rate? (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at the information on Foxconn in the linked article, it would appear that the attempted suicide rate is somewhere around 12 per 100,000 for the first part of 2010. That would come out to maybe 36 per 100,000 for the whole year?
Maybe the headline should be: Making iPads in a Chinese Factory Is Truly Awful, But You're Much More Likely to Kill Yourself if You go to College in the US.
Unless I'm missing something here. Also, the article appears to be pretty old.
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Re:Sucide rate? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cause of death?: (Score:2)
So, the families can only claim minimum damages if it's suicide?
Look for even the most aggregious workplace injuries and deaths to be found to be suicide or attempted suicide.
"She committed suicide by walking into the freezer and then padlocking herself in from the outside."
Sensationalist Reporting!! (Score:3)
I'm not amazed that this would come out of the dailymail, but I am amazed so many slashdotters are falling for it.
I see the term slavery being thrown out there like Foxconn is raiding villages and making chain gangs.
The people who work in these factories are often young migrants, leaving their homes to find better wages. They would seek out overtime hours so they can earn more money to send home or for their dream savings. They know it's tough work, but it's a much better wage than what they would otherwise get. Some people can't handle the stress from being away from home and working a tough factory shift.
China is in that era of an industrial revolution. Family farms are becoming non-sustainable and the next generation is moving into the city to find work. Unskilled labor tend to end up in factories and the rapid life style change along with the isolation puts a lot of stress on these kids. I'm not saying Foxconn shouldn't relax their work policies, but the we're avoiding the true problem here.
Irresponsible Article (Score:3)
I'm all for investigating abuses in Chinese labor and dealing with them, but tis article is counter-productive. First, it constantly refers to Foxconn only in relation to Apple, not mentioning the dozens of other corporations it supplies. It repeatedly refers to facilities run by "Apple's supplier" but doesn't mention if they were actual facilities that make things for Apple and which Apple audits yearly and openly publishes information about and what they found and what action they took. It mentions Apples audits in the phrase, "...but its[Apple] own audit reports suggest suppliers in China may not meet up to these standards." It does not mention the list of changes Apple required from various suppliers nor the numerous suppliers Apple fired outright for violating Apple's human rights policy.
I find this article irresponsible because it is just heaping bad press on Apple (not the rest of the industry) when in truth Apple is the only company I have been able to find actually taking a stand and doing something about the problem. There is no mention of Asus, Sony, Intel, Acer, Nokia, etc. who are all supplied by Foxconn. Thus readers are misled into thinking Apple is the issue. All this article does is motivate Apple to stop publishing audits and stop all the good work they've been doing to remediate the labor problem. I'd like to be the first to throw a big "Fuck you!" to the Daily Mail for their irresponsible, slanted journalism.
Common therapy tool (Score:4, Informative)
Obligatory Southpark Reference... (Score:3)
This article's a joke. (Score:3)
Let's see what they use as examples of excessive hours and draconian rules.
â- Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.
98 hours of overtime. In a month. I'll grant that's a lot of overtime. If he's working a 48-hour week, call it 192 hours straight time a month, and then 98 on top of that? If he's not working weekends, yeesh, that's a month of 14.5-hour workdays. That's hard, is really is, most people won't work days like that for a sustained period of time unless they're medical residents. Even if he *is* working on weekends, which if you're working that much OT you are, then it would take working 12-hour shifts on the weekdays and then coming in for 10-hour days on the weekends. *That* I've done, and plenty of other people have too without it being "inhumane."
And that's the article's outlier. Look at that legal limit. 36 hours a month? Jesus, the unions in this country would strike long and hard if an employer instituted a flat cap of 1.2 hours/day OT. Raise your hand if you've never worked more 36 hours a month OT. Now get off the computer and go get a job.
â- Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.
Wow. Really? There's a rush of demand and you're so busy you have to work through the weekend? That happens so often in every business that it's a standard joke. And note even the wording: they're not required to, they're *pressured* to, and that only *sometimes*. Again, raise your hand if you've never worked two weeks off without a break.
â- In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.
Okay, this has never happened to me, it's not really a Western culture thing, outside of British public schools. American schools used to stick poor performers in the corner with a dunce cap, if Gasoline Alley and other such comics haven't lied to me, but I guess that's gone out of style.
â- Crowded workers' dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a "confession letter" after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: "It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again."
Crowding? And strict rules? In China? Getthefuckouttahere.
â- In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives".
Ah. The suicides. First, if Foxconn has a suicide problem, this isn't a dumb policy. The "I shalt not kill myself note" is actually a fairly standard bit of psychiatric treatment for would-be suicides, sort of like the suicide hotline phones on some bridges. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but the fact that they're doing it doesn't demonstrate that they're inhumane and don't care about their workers, it demonstrates just the opposite.
And does Foxconn have a suicide problem? I doubt it. Foxconn's huge. They've got a million workers, 17 of which killed themselves over a five-year period. So that's a rate of .34/100k/year. China's overall suicide rate it 6.6/100k/year, so employees at Foxconn are killing themselves at a rate of about 1/20th that of the general population. In *China*. They're killing themselves at a rate of about 1/30th of the US population. So maybe this policy doesn't really demonstrate concern for their workers. Maybe it's just a pointy-haired-boss response to a stupid media panic fed by a general innumeracy amongst the population, I don't know. But one thing it's not is inhumane.
And then there's this bit:
Re:Right... (Score:4)
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They could threaten to kill themselves if forced to sign it. If they were clever about it, they could use it as leverage to force better conditions in the work place. That is assuming it wouldn't be cheaper for Foxconn to just hire a whole new staff. Deadlines may not make that possible though for Foxconn.
I doubt that would work.
FC Manager: Sign this pact that you won't commit suicide.
Employee: No. If you try to make me, I'll commit suicide.
FC Manager: You're fired. Get out.
FC Spokesperson: We are deeply saddened to learn that former employee #1785598 took his own life yesterday. He had a history of erratic behavior, even threatening to commit suicide at one point to his manager. In that same conversation, the manager tried to make him promise he would not take his own life, but sadly, was unable to
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Employees: Ahhhh!
(after being shot in the neck by the Chinese army)
Re:Hi, welcome to the Duke lacrosse team (Score:5, Informative)
You mean the Duke lacrosse team which was falsely accused and then hounded by a rogue prosecutor for political reasons, who was eventually disbarred for his misconduct?
Re:Hi, welcome to the Duke lacrosse team (Score:4, Informative)
Dear misinformed:
The Duke lacrosse team did not rape anybody. It was a false accusation and a prime example of how "presume guilt and punish immediately" is a bad idea. The falsely-accused students are now filing lawsuits for damages (like not being able to compete and reach professional level status). Plus a general level of HATE directed by professors to the students. (I always thought profs were secretly bastards at heart.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responses_to_the_2006_Duke_University_lacrosse_case#Duke_faculty_groups [wikipedia.org]
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Prices are set to maximise profits based on what the market will bear; the extra cost of providing decent manufacturing conditions would have a negligible impact (if any) on end-user pricing.
The impact depends on how much of a commodity it is. If manufacturers of competing products use the same low cost techniques for producing their goods, this will bring the prices down due to, well, competition.
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So what brand do you buy that doesn't use Foxconn, or similar worker-enslaving Corporation? (Oh that's right. No such computer manufacturer exists. So you're a hypocrite who won't buy Apple but will happily buy HP or Dell or other computer that's just as bad.)
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Way to avoid addressing the underlying problem.
It's not under their control. If they start treating their employees better, their costs will rise and they will either lose money or have to bid higher, in which case they'll lose contracts (and lose money). CM is a very competitive business, and Foxconn as a Taiwanese company is already at a disadvantage in some ways relative to mainland CMs.
There are several ways this can play itself out. The employees can unionise (which on the mainland will require overthrowing or radically reforming the government)
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