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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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No way to make fun of this ... very sad.
Foxconn company mantra "We always get out daily quota done, .. or die trying"
they should stay at home after the chinese new year in stead of going back to Shenzen.
would that be better for them ?
do they think the conditions are better in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka ?
we all forgot the working class conditions in the late 19th early 20 th century in the west
Absolutely!
Lest we forget- should be about more than just war, but also labour rights. We are reliving the past because of our own short sightedness.
@ Habyarimana. "They should stay at home.. ". Well said that man, that's exactly what a lot do, unless you believe what these idiots below believe..
Mr Lennon Hendrix who says they get "Gulag" if they leave.
Richard in Norway says "they quit they starve".
It seems so many Americans think that all the Chinese are in a living hell. Misplaced patriotic naivety.
Modern Slavery so obese westerns can play wii sports
flip you computer over and find the place where it says "Made in ____"
Everything always comes back to the cost of labor.
Meanwhile back in America
Man gets 35 to life for theft from dog-walking clients ($5,000)http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county-times/ci_19715472
the good news is that he will be able to apply for parol once he has served 85 percent of his sentence - so he's 33 years old now, which means he'll be out before he's 65 years old. Seems fair to me.
This is bullish for prison stocks. Some for-profit prison company will make a pretty penny warehousing this low maintenance inmate.
What a fortunate lucky man. Thank goodness he lives in Heaven on Earth.
So they locked the door that gets to the roof? Problem solved, get back to work making high profit margin gadgets.
Listen: This American Life takes a look at Foxconn
http://shanghaiist.com/2012/01/11/listen_this_american_life_takes_a_l.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Check this out
The Local-Global Flip, or, "The Lanier Effect"
http://tiny.cc/fuzsb
thanks I will, here is something else
Understanding 'The Wal-Mart Effect'http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5181097
Will do
//It is an expression of our preference for low prices. //
And that has fucking costs =)
I've said before, sort of jokingly, that a mass Chinese worker class revolt would actually help bring jobs back to the US and that we should try and encourage them.
#opDragonSlayer?
This is relevant to my interests.
Things will eventually fall to parity eventually anyway once shipping costs increase to the extent where they outstrip the gains in decreased labor cost
I don't think the workers will wait that long though
I like that name #opDragonSlayer
Also, I would highly recommend the documentary "Manufactured Landscapes," the opening scene is very powerful
I found it on YouTube
http://tiny.cc/z1cw3
Only trouble I see with that; will the working conditions be similar?
P.S. It's a POMO day http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/pomo/display/index.cfm
Holy crap, the reverse POMO on 1/9 accecepted to submitted ratio: $8.7B:$171B
Tim Cook the highest paid CEO.
Think he gives a rat's ass about Foxxcomm?
He's already made his fortune.
LOL....
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cook-pay-20120110,0,5116180.story
yes, i think he does, it's not in his interest to have his largest supplier have people committing suicide
I doubt he gives a shit just so long as they continue to be made.
And not a single fuck will have been given by those OWS commies. The hipster fags that buy Apple crap will keep gorging at the trough of conformist anti-conformity while sipping their Starbucks double Santorum-froth mocha lattes, pinkies facing skyward in reverence of their consumerist god, as they discuss the plight of the poor.
Good rant. Well done.
"Suicide Solution"
So those are their only choices, work for Foxconn or jump off the roof? How about fucking quit? Or have a walk out or picket out front or something. Or beat your bosses ass for being a piece of shit.
Threatening to jump off the roof is fucking lame and anyone dumb enough to do it should.
How would they quit, locked in the factory 13 hours a day, locked in the company barracks 11 hours a day, locked inside the company compound 24/7, no telephone, no internet, no OSHA, no police, no everything we take for granted. GBA.
So that's why Apple has Foxconn buying Sony plants in Poland - presumably to make Apple TV units and now they are producing the Snuff Dramas in China. That $86 billion Apple has in Cash must have come from somewhere, so I guess Foxconn Slaves think they are back in the era when Jardines ran the show and pushed opium. Funny how Imperialism gets a new justification - only now its Consumer Driven for all those sleek aluminium gadgets that adorn Hollywood Movies looking ever so cool. Whilst Western Pension Funds seem to be increasingly unable to make pay day, firms like Foxconn are simply using Accelerated Depreciation on their Workforce because Western legislation stops it happening to Western Consumers
"
"Foxconn's commitment to continual education, investing in its people long term and localization globally not only leads to the deep collaborating relationships with leading institutions of higher learning, but also helps to make this Fortune Global 500 group's global operations including the largest exporter in Greater China and the second largest exporter in Czech Republic."
-from Foxconn website: http://www.foxconn.com/CompanyIntro.html
"Foxconn manufactures consumer electronics for a number of well-known companies, including:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
Terry Gou; http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_38/b4195058423479.htm
LG is missing from this list. I think that is a goood thing.
JonesConn
Wow a suicide pack. How bad could it be? Why can't they just quit. I must be missing something.
It's called a "brain"
"Richard," you're acting like a"Dick." The poster admitted they were probably missing something. Gotta make room for that. I am "ignorant" all the time but that does not mean I am missing my brain.
How are things in New Orleans? I see things on the tube that try to push the idea everything is a-okay. What is the "on the ground truth?" Would you eat the seafood?
Foxconn cut out the Kool-Aid break.
Not to worry. I just found out this tidbit:
In a magnanimous gesture of good will,
Female Chinese workers are going to be
granted 15 minutes of maternity leave.
You are not far off. When the women worked in the fields and went into labor, they would leave, go to a hut, have the baby, and be back out in the field the same day, with the baby in a bundle against their bodies. Because they are used to crouching (to eliminate, work in the field, just sitting) and work so hard, they are much more fit for childbearing than us western women.
Yep... a workers paradise, all right. Communism, the triumph of the dick-tater-ship of the poletariat. Would make Chaing Kai-Shek proud! The ultimate victory for Taiwan!
They got as much communism in China as we got capitalism in here.
But Apple is the baby of the Democrats....their love ....Jobs was a GOD...but he had 85 billion in the bank...and the greenies always bought his newest toys....life is good in never never land...
You could quadruple the wage for Chinese workers and not even make a dent in the massive margins Apple and other plunderers build into their products. Even if the manfacturng cost of an iPhone went up $20, which would take a 10x or more wage increase, the cost would be about $80 to make a $400 retail product. Oh no!!! How will Aple cope wth such measley margins???? By the way Best Buy pays $375 for an iPhone, so does AT&T, Verizon and the others. Apple currently makes over $300 profit on every iPhone sold. Capitalism says if they can get away with it then they can. However there is still room for ethics and morality in capitalism, sadly forgotten, and I can easily say anyone who buys an Apple product is supporting the decimation of the middle class and supporting murder. Driving a worker to suicide is murder. Could Apple pay more for iPhones? Yes easily and still remain massively profitable. But that would reduce Apple's earnings and that can't happen because how would Apple stock keep hittin records week after week. That is what it is all about, it isn't about workers or products or consumers. IT IS ABOUT STOCK!!! Our entire economy revolves around the stock ponzi. Trading stock is what created this whole mess. The usefullness of the stock market is over. It only serves to reward those who create nothing and expect wealth without work.
but, but, Steve Jobs was such a visionary; how could this happen, surely had he known he would have insisted on only "enlightened" pinkocommie slave masters for the pawns of Capitalism, or hired Bain "pure as the day is long" Capital to use the American Capitalistic way of borrow $$$$$, buy compay that has assessts and lots of cash, put all cash in personal bank account, sell all assets not nailed down, borrow more $$$$$ to make payroll because now the cash flow is gone, then company goes bankrupt due to unable to pay back loan and thousands of American pawns, with brains of mush like me ask, HOW could this happen is America, what about my dreams of becoming middle sub lower absent class. Oh, the Humanity.
iSplat
Doesn't make that iPhone or iPad so sexy anymore, does it?
Not only has all this off-shoring of work crushed employment in America and the West, it has facilitated the virtual slavery of the Chinese people and the absolute thrashing of their environment.
If I had a nickle for every punk-ass arrogant silver spoon MBA student spouting off about how great this all is and that China is a democracy and their people happy and free I wouldn't have to work another day in my life.
Unbelievable.
We get rid of slavery after the Civil War only to celebrate it for the Chinese people over glowing screens of narcissism.
//Not only has all this off-shoring of work crushed employment in America and the West, it has facilitated the virtual slavery of the Chinese people and the absolute thrashing of their environment//
That's globalization for ya!
PS
Those MBA students you mentioned call that "global labor arbitrage" .. souds lovely, doesn't it? The language that is used is intentional, it is sterilized.
Obviously a bunch of highly effective negotiators those "representatives from the local government"
I shudder to think...!
Why don't they just limit their factories to one story in height?
Or even better build them under ground.
Who will make all this cheap crap for us?
1 million "employees"? That must set the Guiness World Record for Size of a Plantation.
The Chinese workers that make our textile shit turnover more than a bakery. Its a huge problem in China....but when you have a gazillion people who are self-censored yet hard working, corporations dont miss a beat.
Start at 10 mins in to visualize
http://tiny.cc/mu1hd
The good news..
Foxconn, Pegatron to ship first batch of 'iPad 3' units in early March
If they are not scammed and not forced, let them work in any conditions they like.
Countries/governments should allow people to live simple live. If they don't allow, they induce tenions and suicide attempts.
If someone don't like to work for commerce and also don't want to posses commercial products, than he can live like this guy:
"Jon Jandai - Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21j_OCNLuYg&feature=player_embedded#!
Some philosophical background ("Network - Corporate Cosmology):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqEcLlp_Big
Question: why is TPTB forcing to achieve production capacity higher then a natural, pleasant free market level?
Answer: because industrial mass production capability secures military power, which secures TPTB.
But here comes a game changer: if natural resources are gone, mass military operations will be impossible. In this moment TPTB will stop increase mass production capability, lay off all the workers, and start to slow down resource consumption by... elimination of broad population. So for a long run, make yourself useful for military industrial complex or make yourself harmless by not consuming resources by living simply rural live.
Child labor in Africa is the answer! I'm sure Apple has looked into this, but why aren't they executing on it? It must be terrible for Apple execs to have to deal with suicides in a country where you can't take life insurance policies out on your employees.
You are clearly upper management material.
Ain't globization grand? You get all the benefits of slavery without having to be a nasty old slave owner.
Those who build the pyramids would surely sympathize with these poor Chinese slaves. But most of 'em are dead now. Their souls free at last, careening throughout the cosmos like beautiful winged messengers in loin cloths, spreading the word to civilizations throughout the universe and spanning all time, issuing the stern warning... "Whatever you do, don't let Goldman Fucking Sachs get into your world."
Most people just don't know how to connect the dots. Everything is an independent news event to them to skim over between episodes of Survivor.
But whether it's declining real wages here, or factory workers ready to jump in China it is all one thing at play: The Global Ponzi.
It's the world the Rothschilds created. And nothing short of worldwide revolution with the owners of the ponzi hanging upside down in the streets will stop it.
"It's the world the Rothschilds created"
I think it's time we all took a little more personal responsibility. None of this information is far from sight, yet because we would rather be comfortable, we pretend not to see it or pretend not to see connections. The Rothschilds, the Bushes, the Clintons, the whoever, take your pick, none of them would have accomplished anything without the assistance of the passive civilian populations. Be the change you want to see, don't expect someone else to do it for you or you get what we have now.
I understand these guys obviously are facing terrible working conditions. WTF makes your hands turn black?
But for a different view, there are ~450,000 people in Foxconn City. one year, 14 of them jumped off the roof and died (4 more jumped and lived) giving us a suice rate of 3 per 100,000. New York City, by comparison, has an annual suicide rate around 5 per 100,000; nearly double. Does this mean NYC is twice as bad a place to live in as Foxconn City?
http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/savinglives/volume1/vol1_suicidepreventionpublichealth.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
Bonus: the workers signed legal documents they can't sue the company if they commit suicide.
On the labor side of things, a lot of these workers will be replaced with robots soon http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chinas-answer-inflation-robots-foxconn-plans-replace-workers-millions-robots
Any further automation of the electronics industry is not low hanging frut. In fact the fruit is so high that it's not impossile but it requires enormous effort to do.
Geez. All Foxconn has to do is give them what they want, like shorter shifts. I imagine it won't cut into margins more than 10%, and passing that on to consumers would be 5%.
The world is overrun with greedy fuckers, and the Chicoms are turning out to be among the worst of the bunch. The toll in human life of all this "margin defense" is simply stunning. All our gadgets are poisoned with it.
The PC case assembly line paid per unit produced, the problems were lack of training, and the assembly line going too fast, plus probably too low of a pay per piece. If your hands are bleeding and black after one day of work, something is wrong. I guess they don't know "If it hurts when you do this, avoid doing it".
As far as the Chicoms and being the worst, these are the same guys who joined Mao after his Long March. He took 100,000 people on an 8,000 mile hike, duing which 90,000 of them died. Attrition is part of their culture, just like Russians.
Labor will be no longer a source of leverage for the large corporations and soon their models will prove to be unsustainable and perhaps with it some sanity will be restored to the concept of equal pursuit of prosperity whereby central planners will go the way of the DooDoo bird.
This if the model future of the working class in the United States. Except they will be genetically improved with ADHD.
Dilbert should do a cartoon of the evil boss responding to evidence of workplace unhappiness by having leapers'-nets installed around the perimeter of his building.
Plot for Onion News Network.
Title: Jump off the Great Wal Mart of China and save a life.
Show ONN reporters witnessing real world report of Chinamen suicide as ''terrorist threat'':
Reporter reacts ''...hmmm, something very fimiliar about the image, oh yeah, negative returns and unemployment and trillions of debt''.
ONN Blond Bombshell Media Whore:
''You know, if they rigged something up which forced the scumbags to agree to save them before a time limit expires, and bodies fall off the Great Wall of China hanged with rope or something sexy, it would make better macabre comedy ...and that always goes more viral''.
Male ONN Reporter:
''It would be a feat to capture the children of the leaders of nations and the CEO etc... though. Still, it would be a shocker if you captured the suprised look on the faces of the leaders of nations wiives and husbands when they realize how to quantify numbers beyond Gold Star parents. You could make things easier operationally by throwing in a few security force babies from police and military parents of the NDAA, Commie Reds, a few Muslim Green etc...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVoDFNprTnc
The situation of these workers is really unfortunate and Apple is no doubt well underway qualifying some new suppliers.