Posted on 05/26/2010 4:38:08 PM PDT by markomalley
The massive Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen is known for assembling famous electronic goods like Apple's iPhone and iPad. But in recent months it has gained a darker image, as a place where distraught workers regularly throw themselves to their deaths. The latest fatality came on Tuesday morning, when a 19-year-old employee died in a fall in the company's Shenzhen compound, according to the state-run Xinhua news service. He was the ninth worker this year to have died in a fall from factory buildings on Foxconn's properties in Shenzhen; two have survived suicide attempts, according to state-media reports. Another teenager, who the company revealed this month died after jumping from a company building in Hebei province in January, brings the total employee death toll from falls to 10 this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Is their an app for that??
Ah, the simple joys of the workers paradise.
It’s an anti-individualistic culture.
If the individual has no value apart from his work, his family and his society, then his life or death don’t matter.
This is the price of living in a collectivist society.
The Communist Chinese slave factories would have brought a tear to Stalin’s eye.
It’s an anti-individualistic culture.
If the individual has no value apart from his work, his family and his society, then his life or death don’t matter.
This is the price of living in a collectivist society.
The image Microsoft doesn’t want you to see: Too tired to stay awake, the Chinese workers earning just 34p an hour
I would be interested to see the suicide rate in the general population in China. I am sure you could look it up somewhere, but I would bet my paycheck that it would be pure bunk.
Love that slave labor. Love handing manufacturing technology to our enemies even more.
Good Gosh. I thought for a second those were UAW workers. Had me fooled...
This is no slave labor. Foxconn is the largest EMS company in the world, employing about 600,000 people and dwarfing second largest in the industry, Flextronics of Singapore. Their tech and assembly employes are generally well compensated, by Chinese standards.
Most factories in Shenzhen are recently built and are state of the art, providing manufacturing for companies like Sony, Panasonic, Apple, Lotus / TCL or even better models for no-name or less familiar brands’ “clones”.
Some of the suicides were related to investigations of one lost iPhone, some to being overworked due to overtime (in some cases 80 hours/mo instead of allowed 40 OT hours/mo) due to Apple’s delays in rolling out some models of iPhone and pushing out iPad production...
The small mini-wave of suicides in China’s large industrial / financial centers (like Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing) and, specifically, at Foxconn is not related to “slave” or “cheap” labor, but rather exactly opposite - rising standard of living leading to real-estate and stock prices bubble in recent years which is in the process of deflating amid slowing growth rates of economy.
Too bad every last one of them doesn’t folow suit and get rid of their pestilence from the earth.
The former monopoly is also being investigated for failing to document properly the health risks facing its employees.
In 2008 and 2009, 35 of the companys employees committed suicide, laying bare a deep crisis in morale among its 100,000-strong French workforce. The crisis has continued, with a further 11 employees taking their own lives since the beginning of 2010.
Hardly a slave labor at France Telecom, and much higher ratio of suicides to head count.
China is having a lot of economic pain right now, despite the growing economy and record current account surpluses, with their government stimulus package about 4 times bigger (relative to GDP) than the monstrous Obama "stimulus" disaster (though Chinese stimulus is better managed and directed to really needed infrastructure improvements).
Their bubbles are popping and recent government moves to slow down the economy may leave a lot of people in position similar to aftermath of dotcom bomb. This may not be that good for the U.S. economy and employment related to international trade. It could have far more serious impact on U.S. economy than Greece, Spain and Portugal combined.
Their high liberal morals would never permit it.
Who knew?
From china Daily...
As a modern hi-tech company, Foxconn should by no means be on par with the illegal brick kilns, which now represent unscrupulous business groups. But the firm’s recurring suicide cases and its attitude about the cases are far worse than the kilns because unlike the latter, which can be obviously recognized as unscrupulous, Foxconn is protected by the deep cover of high technology, modernization and even local government, the commentary said.
Some said the reason for the suicides was that the mental pressure on the workers brought by the firm’s strict management was too high, but that cannot stand firm to back up the frequent suicides as many workers in other companies feel that kind of pressure as well.
Foxconn, an original equipment manufacturer for Apple’s iPod, has admitted that their employees work about 80 extra hours each month, which is against the law in China.
According to Chinese labor laws, a company breaks the law if it asks employees to work more than 36 extra hours each month.
It was reported earlier that Apple’s iPod OEM paid very little to the workers and provided very poor working conditions for them in their Chinese factories.
China CSR
State-run China Daily keeps repeating the old and inaccurate allegations, probably because Foxconn is not a true “Chinese” company.
Foxconn ($7B in sales) is a public company based in Kowloon (NT), Hong Kong, and is a part / subsidiary of a larger public Taiwanese company Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, Ltd. (also trading on U.S. stock exchange - HNHAF). Hon Hai is by far the largest EMS contract manufacturer in the world, with annual sales over $60B.
Hon Hai’s list of customers include Apple, Cisco, Dell, Nokia (handsets), Sony (PS3, TV panels and assembly), Microsoft (Xbox) etc. Hon Hai / Foxconn has manufacturing plants in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan and many other countries as it expands its manufacturing capacity organically and through acquisitions; recently they bought PC-making plants in Hungary, Mexico and U.S. from large U.S. EMS company Sanmina-SCI, as well as 90% of Sony (which retained 10%) U.S. / North America LCD TV Bravia operations in Baja California.
Another subsidiary, Premier Image Technology has operations in China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan; it’s one of the largest manufacturers of digital cameras for Japanese consumer electronics companies. In 1999 Premier established a “Camera Town” complex in Foshan, in China’s Guangdong province, encouraging suppliers to set up plants nearby.
Another Hon Hai subsidiary, FoxSemicon, is working with U.S. semiconductor manufacturing equipment maker Applied Materials to develop products for solar energy manufacturing equipment. In 2007 the company announced plans to invest $5 billion over period of 5 years in production facilities in Vietnam.
Hon Hai is building automotive market in China (auto-connectors). Company also manufactures smartbooks and e-book readers - almost 80% of the e-book readers made in the world, including the Amazon Kindle reader, are made by Hon Hai.
In 2006 British newspapers reported the company was making iPods for Apple in a massive Chinese production complex where workers were paid less than those in similar facilities and were forced to work overtime to fulfill demand. Apple’s audit found that working conditions at the Hon Hai facilities in China were satisfactory; the contract manufacturer agreed to restrict work weeks to 60 hours. (Under Chinese labor law, maximum overtime currently allowed in China is 72 hours per week during peak production, not to exceed period of 90 days).
Also see my post #14 about “mental pressure” or “work pressure” and suicides at France Telecom, hardly a slave labor company.
Maybe the state-run China Daily can call to unionize the “low-paid” workers of Taiwanese companies in China who have to work overtime (which they can refuse by individual contract) to satisfy demand for delayed rollout of Apple products and other greedy capitalist imperialist Western companies.
Your post makes no sense.
What are you blathering about?
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