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Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions
- shareme 15y agoI would say that is checkmate Foxconn
- sosuke 15y agoWhat if Foxconn just doesn't respond? Would anything actually happen to them if the people mass suicided?
- juiceandjuice 15y agoWould you buy a bloodPhone?
- elliottcarlson 15y agoConsidering how much was already known about the working conditions as well as suicides at Foxconn, it hasn't slowed down sales. I'm sure a mass suicide would get more media attention, but who knows how it would actually affect their bottom line.
- drumdance 15y agoYou never know where that kind of thing could lead. Perhaps the Occupy Wall Street crowd would rally around it.
- srdev 15y agoFoxconn builds a lot more than iPhones. Take a look at all their customers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Major_customers If you own computer equipment or a smart phone, there's a pretty good chance that something that you own was made at Foxconn. And that's partly why it wouldn't matter. People generally connect Foxconn with Apple stuff, and will then boycott by buying other computing products that are also manufactured by Foxconn.
- joedisky 15y agoyou just gave me a great idea for a movie plot. "Blood Smartphone". A movie about Chinese family working in FoxConn and struggling through live; lots of blood, tears, sweat, abuse, poverty and death. And at the end, a dumb american teenager with bracelets buying an iPhone and downloading Angry Birds and Plants versus Zombie all happy and excited.
- daenz 15y agoI can see the transition shot already: a SnorriCam (one of those cool mounted cameras) following the smartphone down the assembly line, past the family, in dingy blue factory lighting. It loads into a box, onto a truck, into a shipping container, over the ocean, unloaded, and finally in a cheery white and shiny Apple store. The teenager convincing his parents to purchase the phone says "but everyone else my age has one!" The camera then cuts back to the Foxconn factory, where a younger member of the assembly-line family stares bleakly into the camera.
- joedisky 15y agolove it!! I would change the teen line though: "thank you, daddy! you really, really love me!!" and would make the ending more tragic. this young member could simply have a bad day etc so him staring bleakly into the camera wouldnt affect me much. how about the plot is about parents who (at the beginning) lost their child that commit suicide cause working 19 hours a day was bit too much, and at the end from overprivilaged, undereducated spoiled teenager camera cuts back to mom and dad hand by hand jumping from a factory roof. i think that would do it.
- nitrogen 15y agoin dingy blue factory lighting. All the photos I've seen of the factories in question are as well-lit as American factories. The working conditions are poor, but they're far better than what early American and British workers endured during the industrial revolution. Also, such a film would only be complete if it documented the nerve and joint damage caused to American vinyl and PVC manufacturers not given proper ventilation. Would you listen to a blood record, or defecate in a blood sewer pipe?
- a_a_r_o_n 15y agoMost people would. It's one thing to switch registrars and get exactly the same thing as you had before. It's quite another thing not to have your smartphone at all. How would you check in?
- galadriel 15y agoHow many suicides would it take before Foxconn is out of business? 1, 10, 1000, .... ? . People already know of dozens or so suicides that have taken place in Foxconn. If people kept on buying stuff regardless, what difference would more suicides make? Call me cynical, but everyone loves cheap products much more than far removed suicides of random people half way across the globe.
- bmelton 15y agoCall me cynical as well, but I can't help but think of how many people competing for those jobs see the suicides as job openings. Simply, the working conditions might be extra bad at FoxConn, but they're bad everywhere else in the general area. The wealth of cheap workers who are willing to work in horrible conditions for pay is still great, and it would take a LOT more suicides than Foxconn has employees for that situation to change for the better. I think.
- d0mine 15y agoThere is already Blood in the Mobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Mobile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Mobile
- marknutter 15y agoSo all the people working there who are willing to take extreme measures to improve the working conditions are planning to eliminate themselves from the equation? Seems like they're doing Foxconn a favor. What ever happened to going on strike?
- Klinky 15y agoGoing on strike in China is suicide...
- marknutter 15y agoWell, if they're planning on killing themselves anyways, what's the difference?
- capisce 15y agoGoing on strike wouldn't be effective, there are tons of people waiting in line to replace them. Apparently people are even paying "recruiters" for these jobs, or agreeing to go without salary the first month.
- jfoutz 15y agoI think it's time for me to check out of the smartphone game. I really like them for travel, but this is crazy.
- marknutter 15y agoWhy not just ditch every piece of technology then?
- jfoutz 15y agoIt's a really tough call. Is it ok to keep using the phone i have? well, yeah. the damage is done. i'd think of that as something like a vintage fur. the animal won't get any more dead. the bigger question is, is working at foxconn better than starving on the farm? I don't know much about rural China. I have a hard time believing that people would be driven to suicide without the factory job. also, a lot of stuff i could likely make myself - i'm just to freaking lazy to buy the parts, solder them up, 3d print a case, and code up the OS. I'm not saying every company needs to be lilly white, but i'd pay an extra $50 for a device that had a significantly lower probability of driving the maker to suicide. -- edit -- to be clear, i could get a lot of what i want out of something like this: http://www.adafruit.com/products/330 http://www.adafruit.com/products/330 + wifi + gps. i'm pretty sure i can get a cellular connection via a sparkfun board. of course, i'd never get through security with a battery hungry monstrosity like that, but it's pretty doable. Also, someone will probably point out the parts come from places far worse than foxconn, so perhaps i'm screwed.
- a_a_r_o_n 15y ago"It's a really tough call. Is it ok to keep using the phone i have? well, yeah. the damage is done. i'd think of that as something like a vintage fur. the animal won't get any more dead." I'm not taking a side, in this comment, on the Foxconn question. I believe the response from the anti-fur side to your observation is that, by continuing to wear and display the vintage fur, you help to prop up the perceived value of fur in general and encourage more furs to be ripped from the rodents.
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- Karunamon 15y agoFTA: (apple) so obsessed it even programmed Siri to avert uncomfortable questions about its origins ... freakin' really??? And I suppose that when I ask Siri in jest to open the pod bay doors, I should be worried that my phone is plotting my demise based on the response?
- Homunculiheaded 15y agoI think this may be a reference to the recent episode of This American Life on the topic [0]. On that program they use this issue as a light introduction to the main theme, just a curious feature of Siri that when you dive deeper leads to an interesting story. [0] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/m...
- Karunamon 15y agoWhat I was expressing such shock at was the way they phrased it. If you look at the image to the right of the offending sentence, it's a Siri screenshot with Siri, where were you made? Siri: That's classified. I don't think this is Apple "programming siri to avert uncomfortable questions" as much as another joking response to a nonsense question along the lines of "Open the pod bay doors" or "What is the meaning of life". The implication struck me as utterly absurd.
- MartinCron 15y agoSiri was able to answer the "where were you designed?" question with "Designed by Apple in California", so it may or may not be just joking response to a nonsense question.
- MartinCron 15y agoI just finished listening to that episode this morning, and absolutely cannot recommend it highly enough. Some of the best radio I've ever heard.
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- maratd 15y agoOne of the hallmark properties of a market economy is that you have choice. You don't like your compensation? You quit. The truth is that everyone at the factory is there because they want to be. Because it beats being back on the farm. But still, Foxconn created the problem. When Western media freaked out over the suicides, Foxconn got scared. They started making their employees sign non-suicide agreements. What? That is the height of stupidity. If a worker wants to commit suicide, a contract isn't going to stop them. However, if a worker does not want to kill themselves ... it creates a new bargaining opportunity. I have zero sympathy for Foxconn on this. They created the problem with a bad business decision, by explicitly broadcasting where they were vulnerable and making themselves even more vulnerable. You don't need to be sympathetic with the workers either. They're just negotiating for higher pay in a unique way. Completely within their rights. Nobody is jumping. The ones who are going to jump won't advertise it or ask for anything beforehand.
- zasz 15y agoOkay, let me see if I got this straight. Foxconn workers are picking between two shitty jobs. Job A is worse than Job B. Job A is so bad that they are threatening to commit suicide. What kind of choice is this?
- louislouis 15y agoIt's called the choice of capitalism for the poor. Basically get exploited or don't eat.
- pjkundert 15y agoLet me get this straight: you are using one of the most ruthless [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_trade] command economies in the world as an example of the ills of Capitalism?
- louislouis 15y agoI'm not just talking about China. It really doesn't matter which country the factories are in. The poor will always get exploited. Be it child labour in India or Indonesia, or closing of GM Flint Michigan. Exploitation of the poor is at the root of capitalism if you think about it from a basic level. It's all about making profit, and for that you need cheap labour provided by the poor, globalization provides an abundance of poor people to be exploited. Don't like the working hours here? Hey we got queues of peasants lined up outside to replace you. Get back to work.
- drhowarddrfine 15y agoWhen I hear about these things I can't help but think, this is how it is over there. This may be their culture and way of life. So how should we think about that? I do know that some have expressed unhappiness over the hours but, in the NPR story, I didn't sense it was grief. So I'm just unclear what to think.
- louislouis 15y ago"Instead of the raise they requested, these workers were given the following ultimatum: quit with compensation, or keep their jobs with no pay increase. Most quit and never got the money." That's a pretty shitty thing to do. Had the manufacturing process not been outsourced to Foxconn, would this kind of behavior fly under the Apple or Microsoft brand image? Probably not.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoLots of conflicting thoughts here. It seems pretty clear that the workers think that their working conditions are unjust. Further, they apparently would be OK with those conditions if they got more money. That suggests they don't consider them inhumane, (not justified regardless of pay) rather they are economically unjust. The truth of whether or not they are economically unjust (in a market driven economy, which China isn't really) is that if they quit there will be no one else to fill those roles (economic scarcity created by a price imbalance). However if there are people who will fill those roles at the prices offered, then they will simply be out of a job. It is always true in market controlled transactions that the buyer thinks they are paying too much for a good and the seller thinks they are paying too little. It's the fulcrum that creates the equilibrium point for the price of a good or service. So in a dispassionate economic way one can say the employees are working to maximize their own economic value. If by periodically pulling stunts like this gets them more pay then they are doing their part to improve their economic station at the expense of the company. The company of course may try to use that to increase the price they charge to assemble such devices, and perhaps give some of that increase to their working staff. Saying that their other option is to 'starve' seems improbable in a country that is based on the communist teachings of Mao and Marx. One might presume (but I don't know since I don't live there) that there are state jobs available. I could certainly understand it if those state jobs were less desirable. But what I do know is that nothing, and I really do mean nothing, is the same regarding working in China as it is in any western (non-communist / non-totalitarian) country. The best one can hope for looking in from the outside are shadows of those things that are creating them.
- jisaacstone 15y agoNot hardly communist any more, actually. The other option would not be to 'starve', most likely, since there is an abundance of low-skill, low-pay work to be found. But don't be fooled into thinking the government (especially the local government) or the companies care about the workers. No one will be doing them any favors.
- mrlase 15y agoYeah, China hasn't really been 'communist' since the days of Mao. To expand on what you said, here's an article from 12 years ago (that's getting incredibly weird to say) about China opening up to private enterprise: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/591841.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/591841.stm. I think most would agree that China is now considered a "socialist market economy [with Chinese characteristics]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy) I think it's really interesting to observe the progression of China's economy over the last 70 years, from the "Great Leap Forward" (and the subsequent Cultural Revolution) up until now, they've had quite some twists and turns, but their underlying ideological basis I find intriguing: they derive their policy from the 'Scientific development concept' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Development_Concept http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Development_Concept). The Brookings Institute also has a good look at China's most recent economic plan if you're interested in looking over it: http://www.brookings.edu/events/2011/1101_china_economic_policy.aspx http://www.brookings.edu/events/2011/1101_china_economic_pol...
- tlogan 15y agoThis article pretty much sums up why revolutions happen.
- mbesto 15y agoSome meta here: After the incident, Microsoft gave Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft the following statement. Foxconn has been an important partner of ours and remains an important partner. I trust them as a responsible company to continue to evolve their process and work relationships. That is something we remain committed to—the safe and ethical treatment of people who build our products. That's a core value of our company. Is there anything human about this statement? Clearly they have never been committed to this. You know what sounds human to me? Someone admitting a mistake has been made and fixing it with clear actionable items. I hope I speak for the masses when I say I'm completely desensitized by comments like this in today's world, because I simply don't believe it.
- donnawarellp 15y agoI wonder how much an iPhone would cost if it was manufactured in a way that actually adhered to all of the "standards and laws" applicable in the US? It would be interesting to see the result of such a study. It would be a way of finding out how committed someone was to the ideals of environmental and fair labor practices: here is a phone that abuses people and the environment for $200 and here is one that respects the worker and the environment $400 (or whatever the number might be). Interesting to know how many people would pick one or the other?
- Volpe 15y agoWow this comment thread is depressing. Anyone who can't see the exploitation in this has their head in the sand. If you are paying/treating people less (in value) than what they contribute (in value) back to you, you are exploiting them. Simple as that. Apple have taken to boasting how great their profit margins are, another way to look at that, is to say they are boasting at how well they can exploit others (suppliers and consumers). Seriously, stop rationalising that your iDevice/Android is a moral device, it isn't in a utilitarian, or deontological sense, by any stretch. Only some weak relativistic point of view can justify it. But that's what helps people sleep at night, so we all just hover around there.
- Dylan16807 15y agoThat is a terrible definition of exploitation. You're saying that even a single dollar of profit qualifies. How are you even defining value? What if I like bananas more than shirts and you the opposite? Do we somehow exploit each other when we trade?
- Volpe 15y agohow do you justify profit not qualifying? bananas and shirts have an intrinsic value, it isn't subjective, they cost X to produce/ship, that's their value. The rest is exploitation. Of course, a pro-capitalist isn't going to like this line of thinking, as it is explicitly anti-capitalism.
- drumdance 15y ago"Intrinsic value?" What if I invent a new banana plant that can grow in cold weather. It's so successful that there is a banana glut. All the banana republics face bankruptcy because it costs more to ship the darn things than for me to go out back and pick a fresh bunch off my own personal banana tree? This may seem like a silly example, but think of how the invention of the tractor affected the draft horse industry. There is no such thing as intrinsic value. There is only the value the marketplace assigns to it. The Soviets spent decades trying to quantify it -- that is, to figure out how much to pay the janitor compared to the factory manager -- but ultimately gave up.
- moocow01 15y agoVery sad. I think this should be seen as a case for why robotic automation should be encouraged wherever and whenever possible. There tends to be an undertone of fear when we talk about automation - fear that robots and technology are going to eliminate everyone's job. Lets also consider that certain jobs out there are not suitable or healthy for breathing, thinking, creative, unique humans (which we all are) to be doing.
- siculars 15y agoTrue, to a point. But I would also say that there should just be better working conditions, better pay, more vacation and better benefits.