The Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese boom town of Shenzhen is so vast that walking around its outer perimeter takes two hours. Its workers turn out components that are supplied to big Western electronics brands including Nokia, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. And it is here that most of the parts for Apple’s iPhone, and the much-awaited iPad, which goes on sale in the UK this week, are manufactured.
Yesterday, Li Hai, a 19-year-old employee of the firm, jumped from the top of the building in Shenzhen to his death. It brought the number of suspected suicides at the factory this year to 10. There have been another two attempted suicides.
All of the deaths have been of youngsters between 18 and 25 years old. Li Hai had only been working at the plant for 42 days. The incidents have prompted intense soul-searching in China, about conditions in its factories and the social cost of breakneck economic development.
If this was a Nike factory or a place associated with Kathy Lee Gifford, the media would be all over it. But Dell? Apple? Steve Jobs? Off limits.
Slack labour and environmental regulations are the EXACT reason China and Taiwan get all the American jobs and y’all get cheap shit goods. I suppose if they clean up their act and their costs go up, you might get those jobs back.
31, ASlightlyCrankyGeek,
You forgot the part where the Chinese government assigns citizens their declared majors for college or forcing sterilization onto women. However, there are ways to have more than one child (if you have the money). Not that Phydeau saw any differences between that and “facism” of the U.S. 🙂
Rather odd how Liberals see communism as Utopian or no more evil than a Democratic Republic.
#9 Skeptic,
Yes, Apple talked about it and guess what? Their comments translates into “We don’t give a f*ck about it.”
http://engadget.com/2010/05/26/apple-and-dell-comment-as-foxconn-ceo-shows-off-the-pool/
Video or it didn’t happen.
One individual told me that the only reason he hadn’t committed suicide was how it would make his mother feel. Being the sensitive kind of guy I am I said, “I wouldn’t let that stop you.”
Ok, now that I have let the pundits have a go at it, I will teach all interested why this is really happening.
It’s not so much Communism or Capitalism.
It cultural. Yup, cultural.
Why? In Asian culture, and in particular China, Taiwan, and Japan, education is your best way out of poverty and economic slavery.
If you have a degree from a good college, then you are set for life. If you have no degree then you are a slave to those who do.
So you would think that the big party is when you graduate college, right?
WRONG!! It when you graduate HIGH SCHOOL. Without good grades in high school, you don’t go to college.
The competition in High School is fierce, overwhelming, and unbelievably stressful.
And if you don’t do well, then you have nothing to look forward to except working a job which is tantamount to slavery. Sure, you can change from one meaningless slave job to another, but it’s still slavery nonetheless and for the rest of your miserable life.
Or, jump off a building and show your slave buddies there is at least one way out.
How long after graduating High School does it take to figure this out? Two, maybe three years…
#37 You are so right. This has to do with culture. The seemingly incredible stupid way Foxconn/HonHai dels with is also very typical and a culture issue: window-dressing; pretend to do something, anything and play it up big time, and avoid dealing with the facts. The facts could be horrible for them; it could actually be that it is not the ones committing suicide that is at fault, but the ‘system’ they work under. If the latter the Foxconn/HonHai could loose face and that has to be avoided BY ALL MEANS.
That company is a Tawanese company, run by people with extreme international exposure, even their education from the US, UK etc. There is absolutely no reason why they shall not be able to analyze and understand why people in their employment kill themselves.
Knowing a bit about the situation on both sides of the Strait, I’d suggest the culture part mixed with a huge amount of arrogance and cynicism and absolutely no respect for individual dignity. This is abuse of power at it’s worst. Sad to know Apple produce their cool stuff there.
That said, with 450,000 emplyees is 10 suicides statistically unusual compared to the rate in similar city population in China/Taiwan?. Possibly not the demographics considered. But that is no excuse for Foxconn/HonHai
#5 You have no clue. This is what a totalitarian society facilitate. This is what a Confusian blame society results in. You cannot get further away from libertarianism than this. Educate yourself!
they say stats show that 14 in 100thousand chinese kill themselves, so foxconn is ahead of the curve here. what about the REAL sweat shops, they must go through people like mad!
I have to go with #12. In this case the state is exploiting it’s citizens in conjunction with some of its business people. The state has decided on low wages as a tactic to pull in business and cash to use on state projects. This is what happens when the state is all powerful and the government is not accountable to its citizens. The elite prosper and everybody else hurts.
If this is a components company the buyer may or may not know that the component was made at or by a given plant. The Chinese are infamous for knock offs/fake branding and the government is not trying to stop the practice.
The buyer could easily be dealing with a middleman. I want X quantity of this component delivered by this date of this quality and you guarantee them to meet spec or you don’t get paid/get any more contracts. In a deal like this the only thing you can be sure of is the quality of the product because you can test that.
Even if the item was bought from another company and marked as such it could still have been subcontracted and made by the offending organization.
China decides what goes on in China. We don’t. If you were under the illusion your opinion matters in China get over it.
Maybe he just realized he was making another apple gadget and said fuck it.
Thank you TThor,
Your comments are also right on the money!
clancys_daddy, he was a Microsoft acolyte and couldn’t take it anymore.
43 I can understand that to.
Angel, get a life… will ya?
Apples’s comment on the suicides (while they were inspecting the Olympic sized swimming pool for Foxconn’s workers):
“We are saddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn. We’re in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously. A team from Apple is independently evaluating the steps they are taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made.”
What kind of suicide bigot are you? For these people who live in a different culture with different societal norms, suicide may be their only form of freedom of speech that carries no further punishment from government.
People over here conveniently ignore that in China, the apple is widely understood to be a sign of impending doom and that the letters HP resemble an archaic symbol of death to one’s family, bringing tragedy to one’s ancestors. The spoken sound of “Dell” in Mandarin comes out phonetically like “daeow,” a curse that implies hot iron and one’s nether orifices.*
No wonder working on the production lines is so grim for these people.
* Fiction is no stranger to truth.
#30 Just because a corporation is large doesn’t make them inherently “evil” as you want to believe. It could be large (dare I say it) because they provide a good or service that customers want.
I try to be nice, but… whatta moron you are Guyver. I didn’t say “evil”, I said “large and lawless”. But we’ve seen what large and lawless corporations do, and it’s not pretty.
The thing you idiotic libertarians refuse to see is that by crippling government oversight, you create large and lawless corporations that do whatever they want to make a buck. And as I said, very often that’s not pretty.
I don’t expect you to understand this. You’re an idiot libertarian.
Hey speaking of Libertarians, how’s your boy Rand Paul doing? Oh right, running for cover as his Libertarian babblings are met with horror from the voters. Good luck with that. 🙂
I worked in an energy services company with 2500 employees. I remember we had 5 suicides in one year. In my son’s grade 12 class of only 60 students one his classmates committed suicide this year. Suicides are tragic, especially among the young.
The US has over 30,000 suicides per year. This story is talking about 10 suicides out of 450,000 workers. By US national standards that should be about 80 just to be normal.
This story is sad. What is pathetic is linking it directly to HP, or Dell, or Apple, or Steve Jobs in particular.
As the world’s big consumer, America had the opportunity to improve working conditions around the world.
But nobody had any interest in that — just cheaper, with no concern for the people who make our stuff.
I think our opportunity to help people has passed.
Now that we are China’s debt slave, they can tell us to shut the hell up and we have to listen.
Phydeau, you realize you are using China as an example of lack of government oversight, right? Yeah, they probably need more internet regulation while they are at it. Oh – and more laws against religion and speech. Yeah, and better regulation of the press!
Wait for the right story to push your anti-liberty agenda, because this sure as hell ain’t it. Patience, Phydeau.
how many Chinese are there right now, 1.3 billion, and how many died, 15. Oh God the Humanity, won’t someone think of the children
Phydeau, you’re way, way off with this one!
Don’t you know that the Chinese Government owns more than 40% of most companies larger than 500 employees, or companies that export?
Don’t you realize that the Government owns the land the factory is on, provides the utilities the factory needs to operate, and manipulates the currency so the factory can export?
The Government in China is in EVERYTHING! Regulation is rampant.
And so is corruption. Every Chinese businessman knows who to pay off and how much to get things done.
A direct consequence of over-regulation is corruption.
Something like what we now have with the Chicago thugs who are currently running the show.
Talk about corruption!!
Top 10 contributors to the Obama Campaign:
University of California $1,591,395
Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
I don’t know if any of you have ever done production work, but I can tell you it’s perfectly freeking miserable. I tried it for awhile years ago and quit because I quickly grew to hate it. But I had the option to quit. I wonder if these Chinese have the option of taking other jobs? If not, I’m not surprised they killed themselves.
pedro, the eternal windows licker
Blood Diamonds, now Blood Tech.
#31 Libertarians believe in as few rules as possible, but not less.
Here’s one of the many ways Libertarians try to feel special when they are really no different from anyone else. News flash: We all want as few rules as possible. We just disagree on how many rules are necessary. For example, Libertarians don’t want burdensome government licensing. They want anyone to be able to call themselves a “doctor”, for example. And then if a quack “doctor” kills enough patients, and is sued enough by the distraught family members, he goes out of business. The “magic” of the free market at work. *rolls eyes*
#33 Rather odd how Liberals see communism as Utopian or no more evil than a Democratic Republic.
There you go Guyver, talking to that librul in your head again. There aren’t any liberals I know of out here in the real world (a place you seem sadly unfamiliar with) who think communism is utopian.
Another clueless wingnut lost in the Fauxzone.
Phydeau and Guyver,
Can we all just agree that your anal need to get the last word in, at the expense of decent discussion has killed this thread?
Have a nice day
🙂
OK – another issue that is important for you to know, Foxconn/HonHai has a workers accident coverage of up to RBY 300,000 or approx. USD 45.000. Suicide is considered – generously – as an accident. In my parts of the world suicide nullifies any insurance…
In this cultural setting, don’t disregard social pressure to help out a whole village by ‘collecting’ this money as a motive. Sounds crazy, but parents has been known to do horrible things with their kids in these parts of the world.
USD 45.000 is like 20 years salary.
As to Phydeau, forget him. He sounds and writes just like Obabaforever 6 months ago. He is an ignorant troll….
#59 fargonaz, don’t be a thread nanny. 🙂
But I admit, I have no respect for Libertarians. Can’t keep a straight face when “debating” them. 🙂
Guyver,
Absolutely right on your comments about my post. Spot on.
An additional story about the Government choosing what Major you will have.
I knew fairly well a pretty Chinese girl when I was at college. She did well in math, science, and engineering. Well enough for the government to pay for her education in the states.
So what was her emphasis? Bridge building.
Yes, Bridge building. The government estimated they were going to need more bridges, so that’s what they were going to pay for.
So much for Chinese “Freedoms”!!