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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."
There's an app for that...
...probably the only way he could save his family from being threatened.
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.
There is now another liver available for transplant.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
"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?
"The iPhone 4 - it's to die for!"
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!>
That's an interesting question. This Digitimes article published the day before he died, but after he had reported the loss, claims that Apple and Sony are cutting back on Foxconn orders, while Dell, Asustek, and HP are climbing on board.
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!
Who are you going to buy instead? Everyone gets their systems built in China, under these conditions. Foxconn is probably one of the better ones.
It's the cost of cheap, disposable goods in the West.
Used to be you'd buy a fridge built in your country, a TV, a car, a washing machine, everything, and it would last years and years. But they were expensive, and major purchases. They kept an economy alive, with people being paid reasonable wages. The electronics industry in a rapid speed to be competitive has changed this. We could have a computer that lasted 10 years, but it would really hold things back if you gamed, or did real work. So it drove an industry of rapid upgrades for computers and personal electronics, that don't last long. Western design, eastern construction.
But these eastern companies don't have the same standards of construction, of employee care, or values, as we do. Additionally the stresses of overwork are immense, they don't have cushy offices, free coffee and 9-5 hours like many of us. Also their upbringing is different. Coupled together, it will add up to a situation where people burn out rapidly, or worse commit suicide if something goes wrong. Many people to replace them of course. Nothing like your own company breaking into your own living space and scaring the bejesus out of you.
Fucking killing yourself over a front-facing camera, or an OLED screen, or whatever the iPhone 4 will have. Hell, it was probably an iPod Touch 3 for all we know. That shows a massive failure of the value system. Hell, it'll turn out to be the iPhone clone rip-offs that Foxconn probably make on the side won't it? As long as the Chinese elite bosses are okay, that's all that matters. Everything else is a meatgrinder. It's 18th Century with hi-tech, and it won't improve until we stop feeding it.
Yeah, he jumped off a balcony...on to some bullets.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Jesus Christ Kid! Wake up and smell the Coffee! It's the Noughties! I'm not paying you to think about flower power and peace among the animals.
Consider this mac: Supply and Demand!! If there's one thing that human history has taught us, it's that people are cheap, but profits are forever. You know how many guys like this guy there are? You know how many iPhone prototypes there are? You don't need to do a lot 'a math to see how this is gonna work out. Man, I could tell you stories about coffee beans and Nicaraguans in the 80's. Fucking great times!
Holy shit! The only time you need to you to jump out a window is when the stock is at 5c and your pretty sure the guy is like, your spitting image. The lesson here is that if the pressure is this fucking high, you need a safety valve, otherwise known as a fall guy. In fact, I'm betting this guy was that guy! Sweet play.
You know, you should be thinking about other people. You should be thinking about how to make money off of 'em, or else get them outta your way. You see a bus load of traumatised kids. I see a several lifetimes worth of prescription medication sales. You see tragedy, I see opportunity.
Shit happens, deal with it. It's all part of the game. Wen just bought a new sports car. Hu just sealed the Intel deal. Yao just jumped out of ten story window. Who cares! It's all just gossip material to spend over Espresso lattes. The second you stop to moralise over rights, wrongs, lifes, deaths; is the second you stop making money. You gotta straighten those suspenders, up the sperm count on the deal, and keep kickin' ass, so people know your the hardest asshole around.
Prime example, Steve fucking Jobs. Guy's such a ball buster that he's got subcontractors breakin' down apartment doors and throwing suckers outta windows just to keep the latest indigo and cyan iDink case covers an international fucking secret. And people still think he's Michael Jackson! You will never have those stones.
So, Put it all on AAPL, Bernanke's got the kettle on. And get yourself a dog!
May the Maths Be with you!
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.
Or, rather, they are more likely to make scapegoats pay the ultimate price.
Do you think executing the head of their FDA-equivalent solved the underlying problems that led to so many public disgraces due to contaminants? Do you think that person was solely responsible for those problems?
Executing that man was PR. Nothing less, nothing more. It's the other actions they have, or have not, taken that would truly demonstrate whether they have taken responsibility.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Or was he helped out the window?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
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.
False. The four pairs of New Balance shoes currently in my house were all made in China.
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.
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.
China has their Yuan fixed to the dollar, rather than allowing it to float freely. If you take any value around GDP in China (or India) of a common money, then it is total nonsense. As it is, many economist think that the Yuan should be 300-400% higher (i.e. about 1.5-2 yuan/dollar instead of the 7 yuan / dollar that the run).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There are a few lines of New Balance shoes made in the USA of >70% USA-origin materials (such as the 991/992/993 line), and several more lines made in USA of 70% USA materials. Basically, as New Balance has grown over the last 10 years, they have expanded by importing rather than by building new factories in the USA.
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".
Half-false. There are New Balance factories in the US.
However, when I went looking for a way to find a New Balance shoe that was made in the US, I failed. All the New Balance shoes I've ever seen were stamped "Made In China."
They seem to have greatly fixed up their website now, though. There's now a "Made In USA" section for men's and women's shoes. So if you want to buy one of the small fraction of shoes that are made in the US, you can.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.