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Chinese Employee Loses iPhone Prototype, Kills Self
tlhIngan writes "Physical intimidation of a Foxconn employee, 25 year-old Sun Danyong, and a possibly-illegal search of his house may have led to suicide after an iPhone prototype in his possession was lost. Foxconn is Apple's long-time manufacturing partner for the iPhone. Entrusted with 16 iPhone prototypes, Danyong discovered that one was missing and searched the factory for it. When it didn't turn up, he reported the incident to his boss, who ordered his apartment searched. There are reports of physical intimidation by Foxconn security personnel. This ended tragically on Thursday at 3 AM, when Danyong jumped from his apartment building to his death." VentureBeat notes that "Apple exerts immense pressure on its business partners [to] help it maintain secrecy." An Apple spokesperson said this to CNet: "We are saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee, and we are awaiting results of the investigations into his death. We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect."
Illegal searches, intimidation, then "suicide"... Uh huh... yeah...
Your bosses were mean to you: sue them, find another job, learn to live with it.
Yes, because that works so well in China, right?
Get some fucking compassion, idiot.
"We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect"
Because nothing says dignity and respect like working in a sweatshop and being paid pennies an hour...
A-Bomb
When it didn't turn up, he reported the incident to his boss, who ordered his apartment searched. There are reports of physical intimidation by Foxconn security personnel.
The question is, will this lead to companies being less, or more likely to look upon Foxconn positively when considering an OEM who will keep their new prototype under wraps?
I don't like playing cultural imperialist, but something about current Asian cultures seems to me to be broken: this isn't exactly the first suicide of its sort, or even an uncommon phenomenon, just one of the more high-profile cases (since it's Apple, and a senior guy). Western culture isn't immune to these effects either (cf. high-profile financial advisors committing suicide in 2008-2009), but I understand that it's significantly more of an issue in Asia. I'd hazard that it's something in the common implementation of 'honor' and self-value that predisposes people towards a massive breakdown in the face of 'public disgrace'.
Not that Americans couldn't use a bit more of the right sort of Honor in their regimen, mind you.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Hah! Like Apple treats its iphone app developers ?
Why not? Believe it or not people are able to sue when they are harmed by somebody, even in China.
You realize that families who lost their children as a direct result of incompetence and negligence haven't even been able to seek redress under the Chinese system? You really think some poor bastard working for an industrial conglomerate stands a chance? I think you've wandered away from the reservation on this one....
Parents devastated at the loss of sons and daughters, most born under China's strict "one couple, one child" family planning policy, have sought a government accounting and a proper explanation as to why so many schools fell down.
Police and local officials have blocked parents of the dead children from staging protests to seek information. An Amnesty International report this week chronicles instances in which parents were detained by police while seeking answers from courts.
Lawyers who took on such cases came under pressure to drop their involvement.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In all fairness I believe both HP and Dell get motherboards and laptops made from Foxconn as well. But certainly Apple's business practices are less than stellar. For every evil business practice we hate Microsoft for, usually Apple follows the same practice and somehow gets a pass.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
You may be right, but if every company does it, how can a consumer "choose" not to turn a blind eye. If they don't buy Nike, they buy Adidas, but Adidas is doing the same stuff. If they don't buy a Big Mac, they're buying a Whopper, with the same baggage. So, unless they make the shoes themselves (out of home-farmed cows) and grow their own food they really have no choice. Without some sort of regulation (either governmental or self-imposed by the corporations), there's no way a consumer can realistically "opt-out" of the inhumanities of modern retail.
<Complete your profile by adding a signature!>
Many people think the way you seem to, which is that "opting out" is impossible. This is an uninformed opinion, it would seem, since options abound. You just have to decide to A) look for them and then B) choose them. Moral backflipping also seems to allow people to continue to sleep at night while their conveniences are paid for in blood by their fellow man in other countries.
Bottom line.. if you like electronic devices, you have to go some way to avoid Foxconn. Apple is known for its secrecy, but we documented evidence that Apple was involved in this intimidation in anyway, you have to assume that Foxconn, and only Foxconn is responsible.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Yeah, he jumped off a balcony...on to some bullets.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
So, on the one hand, skepticisim is healthy.
On the other hand, this isn't skepticism, this is just a different sort of gullibility. And if you allow yourself to believe so many things for which you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever, you draw yourself into a world that is not entirely like the real world, and approach insanity.
Also part of the reason it may have been a problem in this particular case is because of Apple's love for secrecy. Foxconn is a major electronics provider and works with all kinds of companies, in addition to selling under their own brand. Now of course like any contractor, they want to keep the people they work with happy. Well for many companies, this wouldn't have been such a big deal. After all frequently companies post pictures of prototype hardware on the web, or send prototype samples to reviewers. Motherboards would be a good example. You usually see a picture of and get a story on a board a month or two before you can buy it. Thus a leak might not be a big deal. They get informed of a leak and they say "Oh well, it's public info anyhow." However Apple has an irrational obsession with secrecy. Nothing can be known by anyone until it is unveiled with big fanfare at some event. They vigorously go after sites that post info on upcoming products and so on.
Ok well Foxconn knows this, and thus wants to keep Apple happy and maybe responds in a stronger way than normal because of who their customer is. They know that a leak of a prototype, even just the pictures, could be reason for Apple to stop doing business with them since in Apple's world information must be tightly controlled.
People kill themselves for much lesser reasons than losing a top-secret prototype that makes their company a lot of money, and by losing it will end said suicide-ee's career with said company.
There really isn't anything out there worth giving your life for...it is short enough as it is, no need to 'rush' it.
Really? Even being "chained" to a hospital bed so you can be "brave" for 2 years as cancer eats up your body painfully?
Everyone dies. What is so wrong with going out at your own choosing?
Why isn't the difference in workers' rights and environmental abuse priced into free trade agreements?
I have no problem with work going to China, as long as the employers there also have to pay for health care, disability, U.S. minimum wages, and safe workplace enforcement; cannot dump their waste into rivers, etc.
Without those restrictions, U.S. workers cannot hope to compete based on price.
So work done in those countries, and items manufactured in those countries, should probably incur tariffs big enough to compensate for all those other disparities.
"current Asian cultures seems to me to be broken"
Good going, dude. Please, point us at your published works on philosophy. Seems to me that OUR WAY is as broken as Asia's way, maybe worse.
Remember the financial meltdown on Wall Street, recently? There should have been hundreds of bodies hitting the sidewalk. Not for their own lost fortunes, but for the billions and billions of dollars lost that WEREN'T THEIR'S to lose.
Buncha low lifes.....
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Not enough...
It is rather disappointing that Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, Timothy Geithner, and Bernie Madoff haven't sought to atone.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just an FYI, in Asia most suicides are classified as something else in true crime rates. In order to affect a lower suicide rate in the overall data trending. European data trending can be higher because they sometimes include 'other' crimes into their suicide figures during data reporting.
Never trust data, unless you see the raw data sets yourself.
Om, nomnomnom...
Free markets provide a way. If there is a market for such a brand, someone will open a farm, raise the cows (cruelty free), get the leather, pay the workers good wages (maybe even make it here in America), etc. If people want that enough to boycott other brands, then the new startup will do quite well, and will be able to lower its prices as it grows, and economies of scale kick in. Eventually, you wind up with a much better quality product at a perhaps slightly higher price.
That is, unless they have to spend 75% of their income on paying taxes and hiring people to handle regulatory compliance, which is what drove all those companies you mentioned over to China in the first place.
Yeah...maybe more regulations AREN'T such a great idea...
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Just answer me one question: where you get all those information from? Seriously, where? Slashdotter loves China bashing, and you take it to the next lower level. Shame on modders for "Interesting".
Well to put this into perspective:
Hank Paulson served a little under 3 years as Secretary of Treasury for George W. Bush. He helped to initiate the bailouts under Bush.
Ben Bernanke served a little over 3 years as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He also helped to initiate the bailouts under Bush.
Alan Greenspan served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve for almost 20 years before Bernanke.
Timothy Geithner served as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for 6 years before his current position as Secretary of the Treasury.
and you lump these men together with:
Bernie Madoff who conducted a $65 billion world-wide Ponzi scheme lasting several decades.
You might disagree with the course of action these men have chosen for the country in the current crisis. You may question their intelligence and vision for not foreseeing the problems before they became crises, but I don't know if anyone should equate their actions or lack of actions to outright fraud. What is it that you think they should atone for?
The problems that have lead to the current situation were probably a decade in the making. The only one that might have had any real opportunity to change the course of history was Greenspan. Everyone else was relatively new to their job. And for the record, Greenspan admitted he placed too much faith in the rational behavior of financial institutions.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Wait, how do weird fetishes disqualify someone from government appointments?
Hell, in the good ol' Roman days...
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
The profile of who is committing suicide tells the full story. In Western countries, it is overwhelmingly young (teenage to early twenties) males, followed by young females. This coincides with the most emotionally unstable period of most peoples lives. In Japan (and possibly other Asian cultures), the figures are overwhelmingly dominated by middle aged men - middle to senior management and politicians who are under a lot of pressure not to let their company or country down.
I think this a fallacy promoted by those who want to maintain profit margins. If this were true, then we should expect to see mass unemployment in most western countries where these protections apply. But we don't. And while it's true that many jobs have gone to China, one could make the case that the average Chinese worker is actually worse off in terms of quality of life compared to the western worker, who is only marginally so, if at all.
The great paradox of the Chinese economic boom is how it has so failed to significantly raise the living standards of the population as a whole. The reason it has failed is because of lack of protection and fair compensation for employees. There is little domestic demand for goods as people have little money and less time to buy them. Western economies were similar for decades, with successive booms doing little to improve the lot of the average man until labour laws came into force, primarily after the second world war.
Industrial relations are an extremely important part of any economy, and it is vital that a balance be achieved there. China has so far failed to achieve this balance. The consequences for failing to do so may be dire indeed.
May the Maths Be with you!