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In such high numbers that you need dedicated anti suicide infrastructure? This very clearly isn’t some kind of regular workplace with otherwise reasonable cond

by mhoad 5y ago

In such high numbers that you need dedicated anti suicide infrastructure? This very clearly isn’t some kind of regular workplace with otherwise reasonable conditions. What has been repeated described there over many years and many accounts is by every reasonable definition a human rights and moral nightmare. Just waving this away as the “normal” course of business seems gross

FredPret 5y ago
My city has dedicated anti suicide infrastructure and it’s one of the happiest places on Earth. It means nothing. The nightmares you describe might very well be a big improvement over normal life in that country. Blaming Apple for a statistically average rate of suicide is madness; they make phones, they aren’t all-powerful
- mhoad 5y ago
  We are blaming Apple for having a supply chain that meets no reasonable definitions of ok or appropriate. They promised us they would fix it and they didn’t. It appears they didn’t even try because all of the conditions outlined in this article would have become very obvious if they managed to do the absolute bare minimum of analysis by say visiting these locations. The accusation here is that Apple lied and they knew about this and that’s not ok.
gruez 5y ago
> In such high numbers that you need dedicated anti suicide infrastructure? >This very clearly isn’t some kind of regular workplace with otherwise reasonable conditions. Or maybe "suicide + apple factory" gets clicks/comments (like this article/thread), leading apple to install preventative measures to make it look like they're doing something. I seriously would still like to see statistics before jumping to conclusions either way.
- mhoad 5y ago
  We are literally in a comment section of a set of very specific reports detailing the exact problems in the conditions. This is not some hypothetical where we need to “wait for the statistics to compare how many standard deviations about the median these workers are”. There is very clearly a big problem here. That isn’t click bait.
- MonkeyClub 5y ago
  > I seriously would still like to see statistics before jumping to conclusions either way. I see what you did there :)
wrboyce 5y ago
> In such high numbers that you need dedicated anti suicide infrastructure? Let’s be honest here, it’s a bit of net. “Dedicated anti suicide infrastructure” Jesus Christ pull the other one. I’m curious how many people would have to commit suicide before you’d splash out on some nets? I think one would do it for me…
sokoloff 5y ago
It looks like the average rate is 97 per million per year in China. Foxconn employs around 350K in China (other posters are claiming 1M, but I took the most conservative figure I found). With 350K employees, you’d expect about 34 suicides per year if their rate was at the national average. At 3 a month, yeah, I’d put up nets as well. While I’m sure the reporting doesn’t tag every worker who happens to commit suicide as a Foxconn suicide, I don’t see evidence that the Foxconn suicide rate is higher than the national average and sibling comments and Wikipedia (sourcing ABC News and the Economist) are claiming it’s lower. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_China#Statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_China#Statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis

by mhoad 5y ago

FredPret 5y ago

My city has dedicated anti suicide infrastructure and it’s one of the happiest places on Earth. It means nothing. The nightmares you describe might very well be a big improvement over normal life in that country. Blaming Apple for a statistically average rate of suicide is madness; they make phones, they aren’t all-powerful

mhoad 5y ago
We are blaming Apple for having a supply chain that meets no reasonable definitions of ok or appropriate. They promised us they would fix it and they didn’t. It appears they didn’t even try because all of the conditions outlined in this article would have become very obvious if they managed to do the absolute bare minimum of analysis by say visiting these locations. The accusation here is that Apple lied and they knew about this and that’s not ok.

gruez 5y ago

> In such high numbers that you need dedicated anti suicide infrastructure? >This very clearly isn’t some kind of regular workplace with otherwise reasonable conditions. Or maybe "suicide + apple factory" gets clicks/comments (like this article/thread), leading apple to install preventative measures to make it look like they're doing something. I seriously would still like to see statistics before jumping to conclusions either way.

mhoad 5y ago
We are literally in a comment section of a set of very specific reports detailing the exact problems in the conditions. This is not some hypothetical where we need to “wait for the statistics to compare how many standard deviations about the median these workers are”. There is very clearly a big problem here. That isn’t click bait.
MonkeyClub 5y ago
> I seriously would still like to see statistics before jumping to conclusions either way. I see what you did there :)

wrboyce 5y ago

> In such high numbers that you need dedicated anti suicide infrastructure? Let’s be honest here, it’s a bit of net. “Dedicated anti suicide infrastructure” Jesus Christ pull the other one. I’m curious how many people would have to commit suicide before you’d splash out on some nets? I think one would do it for me…

sokoloff 5y ago

It looks like the average rate is 97 per million per year in China. Foxconn employs around 350K in China (other posters are claiming 1M, but I took the most conservative figure I found). With 350K employees, you’d expect about 34 suicides per year if their rate was at the national average. At 3 a month, yeah, I’d put up nets as well. While I’m sure the reporting doesn’t tag every worker who happens to commit suicide as a Foxconn suicide, I don’t see evidence that the Foxconn suicide rate is higher than the national average and sibling comments and Wikipedia (sourcing ABC News and the Economist) are claiming it’s lower. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_China#Statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_China#Statistics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides#Analysis