FoxConn Workers Threaten With Mass Suicide If Working Conditions Aren't Fixed
FoxConn, which at last count had well over 1 million workers and rising, appears to have had enough of being the global electronic gadget sweatshop, and as the Telegraph reports, saw its workers threaten with mass suicides unless working conditions are not improved. "Around 150 Chinese workers at Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, threatened to commit suicide by leaping from their factory roof in protest at their working conditions. The workers were eventually coaxed down after two days on top of their three-floor plant in Wuhan by Foxconn managers and local Chinese Communist party officials." Does this mean that in the latest Apple prospectus there will be a Risk Factor which says: "Our profit margins may be severely impaired if our contracted work force decides to proceed with mass self-induced genocide." We will find out, but if anyone needed a loud and clear warning that the record profitability of high margin electronics producers is about to go down, this is it.
Needless to say, this is not the first time FoxConn has had close encounters of the suicide kind:
Foxconn, which manufactures gadgets for the likes of Apple, Sony, Nintendo and HP, among many others, has had a grim history of suicides at its factories. A suicide cluster in 2010 saw 18 workers throw themselves from the tops of the company's buildings, with 14 deaths.
In the aftermath of the suicides, Foxconn installed safety nets in some of its factories and hired counsellors to help its workers.
The latest protest began on January 2 after managers decided to move around 600 workers to a new production line, making computer cases for Acer, a Taiwanese computer company.
"We were put to work without any training, and paid piecemeal," said one of the protesting workers, who asked not to be named. "The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin on our hand was black. The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it," he said.
What next? Each iPad coming with a disclaimer: "No Chinese workers committed suicide in the creation of this product"?
Several reports from inside Foxconn factories have suggested that while the company is more advanced than many of its competitors, it is run in a "military" fashion that many workers cannot cope with. At Foxconn's flagship plant in Longhua, five per cent of its workers, or 24,000 people, quit every month.
"Because we could not cope, we went on strike," said the worker. "It was not about the money but because we felt we had no options. At first, the managers said anyone who wanted to quit could have one month's pay as compensation, but then they withdrew that offer. So we went to the roof and threatened a mass suicide".
China has "dealt" with the issue:
A spokesman for Foxconn confirmed the protest, and said that the incident was "successfully and peacefully resolved after discussions between the workers, local Foxconn officials and representatives from the local government".
He added that 45 Foxconn employees had chosen to resign and the remainder had returned to work. "The welfare of our employees is our top priority and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly," he said.
So all is well - please resume your sweatshop-facilitated iTunes enjoyment.
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Wow
Occupy Rooftop
These Chinese are always so inventive...
This makes Occupy look like a kindergarten recess.
This is sad. I bet they would have been much happier just farming down by the delta and living an agrarian lifestyle.
Employment in the Chinese War machine cant be fun.
Yeah but just think what it'll do for unemployment...
If this happened in the US, the DOW would hit 25,000 just like Robo says, no sweat...
Apple's Production Cost for 1 Ipad: $20
Apple's Taxes paid to US IRS: max 2% of gross revenue
Apple's Cash Holdings: $82+ BILLION
Winners: Apple, Apple share holders/speculators
Losers: US IRS/i.e. US/The People, US consumers, US tax payers and chiefly FOXCONN WORKER-SLAVES.
Love and treasure all the I-stuff, because it is paid with blood, sweat, tears, death and morally speaking, fraud.
China's status as advanced consumer electronics maker for the world plagued by labor issues.
Amerika's status as nutrient dense Twinkie maker, spong cake filled with a creamy foam (that can be used as insulation & also as a fire retardant) center, plagued by financial and economic issues (many of which where Bernank-induced):
Twinkies maker Hostess seeks bankruptcy protection
Will someone PLEASE think of the Twinkies?! :-)
and the ho ho's dude...
I thought they worked at the Xbox plant for Microsoft?
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16146955
China is the happy joyjoy future for all of us who are not nobility! I can't wait.
The marvelous thing is the stupid, dipshitty "causes" of all the iLemmings, all their "sustainable" bullshit while they chatter away on sweatshop devices and post their trifling lives on the interwebz
Teenagers (and alleged adults) everywhere resent that you are at least implying that few people (or none) really care about their every-5-minute-updates as to their geolocation & activities via Twitter:
@PimplyTweetingTeen-or-RealHouseWiveOfBrooklyn
8:05am: I'm @ the Starbux on 31st & Main
@PimplyTweetingTeen-or-RealHouseWiveOfBrooklyn
8:13am: I ordered a peppermint mocha fracha latte Vende Grande
@PimplyTweetingTeen-or-RealHouseWiveOfBrooklyn
8:25am: I sharted a little
no...people DO care. Or they pretend to care and ostracize those who admit they don't care.
You're an OUTCAST if you don't go along with the "conventional wisdom" and "consensus opinion." That means THOU SHALT love "social media" or "iShit" or ANY trend that the madison avenue semites shove down your throat using their cousin Bernays' manual on how to steer zeitgeist.
Don't you know you're not COOL and HIP and PLUGGED IN if you don't tweeter some banal shit every 6 minutes?
Hell, teen girls are actually killing themselves over this shit.
So when/if 150 or so Federal Reserve and/or JPM "associates" take to the roof will they be coaxed down or "removed".
We Americans help make it happen! We always know how to pick the right leaders for the job...and this is NOT a race thing...
20 dollars to make an ipad is pure made up fiction.
I believe the $20 is the manufacturing cost, part of which will be the pay for the workers.
If assembly was done in the US, It extremely likely the assembly plant would be automated. Right now Chinese labor costs are below US assembly automation. I suspect the if the labor costs rise, production will shift to automated assemble. It would not suprise me that Apple or FoxConn already has plans for automation in the next year or two. In the end the IRS and US Manufacturing workers would still lose.
I bet they will be alot happier farming but poorer. Many do the sacrifice for their families. I am sure many of us can relate. Right now, it would be so nice to leave all this bs behind and turn into a beach bumb in Costa Rica.
Seems to me there are a few people in the Mariner Eccles building already working on that for you...
That's not saying much.
I could have writ, "A walk in the park", but I thought that was redundant.
I was thinking the same thing. We have as many reasons to be pissed, but our lame, fat, stupid population just flips the channel over to Fox Sports and checks their fantasy football scores on the ipads they can't afford. Much has to change from the ground up around here.
Jump you fuckers!
Lighten up Francis.
Were this to happen in AmeriKa, the protestors would be maced/pepper spayed, kicked and drug off to jail by Homeland Security funded Goon Squads decked out to the 9's in the latest Blackwater-approved Riot Gear, interrogated about their possible terrorist affiliations and ties, then sent (courtesy of Sen Levin, McCain, Graham) on an all expense paid vacation to some unnamed internment facility until the end of the War on Terror (whatever that is).
Back to work you Debt Slaves!!
Forgive me the fantasy; In the US we see bank CEO's, Congress Critters, and those most responsible for our financial mess, climb to the top of their glass spires and threaten to throw themselves off unless the taxpayers rally to their cause to increase their salaries and the bailouts. (cue crickets) The sounds of their carcasses hitting the ground is like a 3rd grade class dancing on a room full of bubble wrap...and life is good again...
Poignant, visceral. Dug it.
Happened in 1929. Fucking bailouts. It could have been raining douchebags all over Manhattan!
It NEEDS to rain douchbags in Manhattan, and neighbors giving their pinstripe fag neighbors reconstructive surgery and a "get the fuck out of the neighborhood" kick in the pants.
Sadly, there are none in the 1% with any self-respected decency as they too worship at the altar of greed and money (called fuck your neighbor).
They too shall pass, meaningless wastes of unenlightened with a bankroll and that is all.
unfortunately i did not see RoRo&Co jumping, aka Rockefeller & Rothschild
Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8
You think it's bad now, just wait until the iPhone 5 starts production.....................the masses say "wes gotz to haz the newest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" What's the Intrade over/under on jumps once 5 kicks in gear???
might as well, jump...
Van Halen has your back:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlq0lYB3iSM
New Van Halen sucks, IMHO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WfQ-hV3WtA&ob=av2e
Lame, I agree.
JUMP
Oddly enough... A new movie "MAN ON A LEDGE" opens in a few weeks...
Man I need to learn something from these guys. Maybe an exchange program?
It would need to be a very short program it seems...
IDie.
Need a "Jump You Fuckers" song remix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8
I did find a "foxconn suicide song". No idea what it says. Anybody here translate?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMV5PuD109Q
Selfish workers..
Not even a thought about the millions of iPod, and iPhone users whose lives they would wreck.
Is this really what our world has come to? clinging desperately to an existence of one tech toy to another at the expense of someone else. human beings need to take a step back and say "WTF are we doing here?"
Blinders on bitchez
Unfortunately consciousness is heading, and is being pushed, in the opposite direction. We can only take responsibility for our own sovereign emotional territory right now, with the hope of bringing change one by one. Stick with it.
even ZH "freethinkers" had an orgy of mourning for Dear Leader Jobs
I didn't.
iDidn't
He was really bright and insightful, but likely not a whole lot more so than a lot of the guys at the Palo Alto Research Center.
He was however more opportunistic, ambitious and tenacious than most of those guys.
seriously
iHope
Is there an app for that?
iDoubt It
iLOL
uJump
I'm sick
"...saw its workers threaten with mass suicides unless working conditions are not improved".
So there you have it. Chinese workers DEMAND worse conditions.
So much for helping the Fair Trade cause! Gotta watch out for those typos....lol.
The welfare of our workers is our top priority ......LMAO.
Bet those 45 workers who choose to resign have now been relocated to a chinese detention center.
Wonder if Mitt Romney is going to fix this situation with his "day one trade war with China" After all, he is the second coming of "hope and change". Something about fool me once seems to fit here....sigh.
"Bet those 45 workers who choose to resign have now been relocated to a chinese detention center."
Or organ donors.
Fuck Mitt sideways with a lunch box. I'm already having the "voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil," argument with friends and family.
"But he's the best we have against Obama! Are you going to vote for Obama??"
There really needs to be a social media campaign of, "If Mitt Romney is the nominee, I will vote for Obama". Ron Paul has the ability to pull something like this off. However, this whole charade of a campaign is only his attempt at leaving something for his neo-con son to run with after he's gone, so there will be no rocking the boat(same reason there will be no third party run).
People still think theyre actually presented with a choice...and it would be 'Better than Obama'...nevermind Mitt Romney is the central bankers wet dream...well people will believe anything. Trained talking monkeys.
I am employing the "Just Say No" approach to the 2012 election. I will not once again vote for the Republicrat/Demublican candidate I hate the least. If 2012 comes down to Obama vs Romney, I will happily vote 3rd party. Hopefully Ron Paul will run 3rd Party. If he doesn't, I'm voting for the best of the rest.
challenge ANY of them to show a substantive difference between Obama and Busch and ask in light of the results, why the fuck they would want to vote for someone OTHER than Obama.
Ask them to write down the differences between these candidates. They won't find any.
I did. The only answer I got was, "Romney promised to repeal Obamacare on Day 1. That's enough for me right there." This from someone who regularly complains that all politicians lie and we need to kick them all out, so on and so forth (not to mention was ignorant about Romneycare in the first place!).
Basically, I need some new friends.
Did you tell him Bama promised to bring the troops home and close Gitmo day 1?
Or just do what I do and mock people like that. Fool me once, shame on....shame on you...fool me...not gonna get fooled again.
Just so you know, much of my schtick here is borne of the fact that people are highly resistant to education. They cling to their absurd faiths. That is what your friends are doing.
It is too frightening to stop clapping or not cry for the deceased Dear Leader or to say "wait a minute, this is bullshit and you all know it," or to admit that the system is a sham and suck it up and take the necessary action to correct the problem.
Just an FYI, unless the constitution has been repealed, a president CANNOT repeal a law. You might want to mention that to your "friend".
But really why let anything like the constitution get in the way of a candidates political narrative.
More than likely ordered to be followed and robbed so they don't have money to get home.
the guy made his money as an asset striper, what do you think will happen when he is pres??
just saying
Revorution
Double wow.
I thought sweatshops only existed in East London.
american workers wish they existed in the us...
Thank god for minimum wage. What ever would the American people do if there were actually jobs available?
working at fox con like facilites. God dont you get? Min wage is a slave wage as it is.
Is no wage better than below minimum wage?
Apparently, because by no wage you really mean 2+ years of unemployement checks.
Nothing will get fixed until people get hungry, and by then it will be too late.
Some still do.
The Alaskan fishing fleet.
I worked there and it is voluntary slavery.
Pay is only so good due to the fact you can not spend it at sea, at least when I was there.
Yes, some boats make out quite well with great catches and pay. Not all do however.
Working there makes all other jobs I have done, including commercial diver, a joke.
HAULBACK! oooh noooooo not again!!
They wouldn't need "safety nets" if they just chained everyone to the floor, walls or anything else that is sufficiently heavy. How about inoperable windows (or no windows) and restricted access to roof areas. Do I have do all the thinking? Ridiculous.
/sarc
They have to allow access to the roof... It's called "climbing the corporate ladder of success"
It's aspirational... LULZ
This is the global economy is it ? Where these workers threaten suicide whereas workers elsewhere are able to change emploer, there must be a lack of other employers. Capitalism's supply/demand for labour is not functioning in China for the ordinary guy it would seem.
Infinate growth has its drawbacks. The need to eliminate labor through automation or reduce costs through lower wages. Have fun storming the castle!
Lesson for American employers: Unless the help threatens mass suicide, you aren't squeezing them enough.
Lesson for American employees: unless you want to end up like the workers at FoxConn, you'll need to "squeeze" something of your own (preferably with a really light pull).
Calming Suicidal workers - there's an ap for that
iJump
i heard that instead of using robotics the workers lay in the wires and do soldering by hand. Yes, HAND-MADE gizmos. They of course suffer from repetitive motion syndrome and nerve damage from solvent fumes.
philosophical question: Are you supporting Chinese workers by buying their crap?
Or would you be supporting Chinese workers by NOT buying their crap?