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Foxconn May Close Factories In China
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Foxconn, the manufacturer whose clients include Apple, Dell, and HP, is on the verge of pulling out of China after a spate of suicides. The CEO has accused workers of killing themselves for financial compensation, and the company has stopped suicide payments to suicide victims' families. Foxconn's CEO also told investors that it is considering moving its production operations to Taiwan, and automating many parts of its business, a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs."
All this will do is just move the problem. Unless they thought having to actually give a damn about those workers was a problem.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Killing yourself for financial compensation is a poor long-term business plan.
You gotta make it look like an accident. Ya think with all the pirating you do, you might have gotten ONE episode of The Sopranos?
How about bounties for Foxconn executives?
[/joke]
It seems people at Foxconn inhale air from The Happening http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/
Taiwan = RoC: Republic of China
Mainland China = PRC: People's Republic of China...
And that doesn't even consider the eventual reunification that *both* sides desire. (although the desired terms are wildly different...)
Anyway, I know it's great to have people employed, but if it can be automated, why wasn't it before now? The more tedious jobs we can do with machines, the more people are freed up for other things.
You can't transition to a "post-scarcity" economy without putting a few people out of work, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be a goal.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
That's Japan you idiot.
Foxconn employs almost 1 million people? Really? 1 million out of 1.3 billion?
There's no way they are going back to Taiwan. Labor costs are 5x higher. The logistics are higher cost too.
Maybe Foxconn's days are numbered as an Apple OEM and this is just the blame shifting.
The bottom line is that Western consumers are perfectly happy supporting distopian labor conditions.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Yes, obviously the workers who killed themselves are in the wrong.
Why does it always seem that the world turns upside-down in the world of business and economics?
No jokes about that horrible Guns n Roses album, shudder.
The first world for the past 40 years has been using China as a source of cheap industrial labor that relied heavily upon absolute totalitarianism finds itself dealing with nascent labor unions, human rights organization and popular dissent and outrage during times of strife and disaster. As this increasingly puts strain on the kleptocratic communist party and the equally corrupt Chinese state military a rumbling/robust market economy is emerging that stands to give a significant financial foothold to an emerging Chinese middle class to the world's 3rd largest economy. Once you have a middle class anything goes, once you lose one, well...
No army in the world can stop an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
These suicides are well within the statistical expectations for a worker population that large. But People don't care about facts, just emotions.
The suicide rate in Canada is about 3600 deaths per year for 1992 in a population of 28.4 million. If Foxconn employs 800,000 workers, one would expect 101 suicides, assuming the same suicide rate. This is far higher than the number actually experienced at FoxConn, where only 9 people have died as of May.
Based on this, working for Foxconn in China is better than living in Canada, at least as far as suicide risk is concerned.
This puts the numbers in perspective. Down with the oppressive Canadian Imperialist Overlords!
Obviously, the recent spate of suicides shows us that working conditions at Foxconn in China are not optimal. But you also have to consider why people would take such jobs - it's clear they don't have any better alternatives. What becomes of these 800,000 who lose their jobs?
Also, I'm not sure I see an advantage to Foxconn, either. If they're going to be moving their operations to countries with better working conditions with a higher overhead for labor, what are they gaining? Wouldn't it make more sense to improve working conditions for their employees in China, which they could probably do while still realizing a significant savings in labor costs?
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
If that's China, that'll come in the form of homicides. Of the workers.
Then bills will be sent for the bullets.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
If China isn't the best place in the world to hire cheap, slave-like labor, where does that leave? Eventually, Foxconn and all the companies that rely on it to produce cheap electronics are going to have to start paying workers more. That cost will get passed on to us, the consumers. This is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather pay more for my laptop or iPhone than have to live with idea that my high-tech gadget habit is causing suicides on the other side of the world.
You know the working conditions/pay are bad when people would rather kill themselves for the insurance.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The major problem with Chinese suicides is that you're hungry again in an hour.
Not that /., foxconn or China would know the difference.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In the U.S., families often encouraged the police to classify suicides as "accidental" gun-shot wounds. For example: "Gun cleaning accidents." This avoided many social stigmas for the surviving family. As such, the family quietly encouraged the police to do this.
When Foxconn kills suicide payments, the families will pressure the police to classify the deaths as "accidents". Thus avoiding some bad press for Foxconn. It is amazing what a little financial encouragement can accomplish ...
Although there were "guilds" in europe for ages, the modern trade union emerged in the US as the train union. At the time train workers were like foxxcon workers. There was no assurance a route would ever return you home. You lived in company towns along the way. And the main fixture there was the bar where you wasted your pay check. Accident rates where high and efficiency or scheduling was low. Since you lost your wages and never saw your family, what were you living for?
The train unions first emerged not to demand better wages but better living conditions. They sold themselves to the train owners as a plan to increase professionalism and public respect. It worked. accident rates did go down. Barrier's to entry and standards increased training, retention of experience, and professional conduct. Workers took pride in their work. Many bars were closed People returned home on time and with money in their pockets.
Today we often see unions as protecting lazy workers form being fired or demanding higher wages via collective bargaining. What we don't see is that these are small perturbations about a dynamic equilibrium between labor and management. That is we no longer have the deprevating working conditions of the 19th century to see what could be the case if management got the upper hand when labor markets were not tight. The excesses of unions we see to day are tracebable to fact that in some markets it's possible for manufacturer's to push along price increases as long as they can gaurenttee the competion pays the same costs. E.g. car manufatuter's would agree to a wage increase at GM as long as there was also one at ford. IN any given port, the same principle allows port owners to pass along long shoremen wage increases.
What we have here in foxconn is a throwback to the same early situation. Workers living in company dorms, shitty pay, long hours and dangerous working conditions. That is to say, no union.
The real problem with this is not the sad plight of those poor workers. But actually because it undermines the status of workers who work in countries with state or union mandated good working conditions. Those jobs get shipped out. There is a push to relax those costly standards to get the jobs back.
The solution to both these problems is not for the FOX conn to unionize. It would be good if they did but until that becomes universal in asia it won't fix the problem, it will just move it. INstead the solution is to put a tarrif on all imports from countries that makes the playing field level.
if your workers have below-OSHA woking conditions then imported goods get a tarrif that is equal to the cost to US companies for maintaining OSHA standards.
this then makes it cost neutral for foxcon to have better condtions because it can outcompete companies that don't do that.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I heard that Foxconn's suicide rate is below that of the general Chinese populace. But that doesn't stop people from overreacting I guess.
I'm sure the 800,000 newly unemployed people will understand.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Foxconn Exec: It's iPhone, not iP0wne! ... ... really? For that? ... that's a great idea! Very good. ... really? ...
Foxconn Employee: Yes, there's a difference?
Foxconn Exec: Yes, yes there is. You know what you have to do
Foxconn Employee: No
Foxconn Exec: Yes, for that. We can't exactly sell them like this, can we?
Foxconn Employee: Um, I would buy one like that.
Foxconn Exec: Really? Hmmm
Foxconn Employee: Thank you.
Foxconn Exec: Oh, not good for you, good for me. It's my idea now.
Foxconn Employee: No
Foxconn Exec: Yes, yes it is. You know what you have to do
Foxconn Employee: This just isn't my day.
Foxconn Exec: No, no it isn't.
Cisco
Motorola
Intel
PS3
Wii
Xbox 360
Kindle
Why only say Apple, Dell and HP when there are other good names to soil with wrongful death?
Also they are moving their Chinese operations to India. Funny thing is, this is a Taiwan based business. Take that China!
God knows what the real reason for this story is, but obviously it's meant for the mathematically illiterate masses, not for you.
Anyway it's interesting to note all the responses from the idiots who are angry that you can do math and call this story for the absolute bullshit it is.
now i understand why foxconn was going to not just increase wages by 20%, but actually double them. it's because they are moving operations to a more expensive country. and i actually thought they were just going to be nice to the Chinese.
It was like 20 years ago when I was working at the Stanford medical center, they had a mail delivery robot that committed suicide.
For about a year it was zipping around delivering mail, and xrays. It even knew how to take the elevators.
But every now and again it would just hang out by the ATM machine and act weird.
One day it just drove down a flight of stairs and crashed to the bottom shaking the whole building and crushing it's plastic casing.
I had a great photo of it lying in a pool of brown lubricant and battery acid, surrounded by doctors in white and blue coats.
There were rumors that the ATM machine rejected it.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
"a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs"
Cool, mass unemployment. That'll help cut the suicide rate.
I would imagine that until now, Foxconn's bean-counters had done the math and figured out that it was cheaper to simply build a factory in China and use cheap labor to make their products. But now that their labor is causing PR problems, demanding raises, and killing themselves for insurance payouts, the bean-counters redid the math and figured out hey, if we keep this up, it would be cheaper just to move to Taiwan and have robots do most of the work. So that's what makes sense, and that's what they'll do.
I'm not talking to the ethics of the matter, just the fundamentals of the situation, which is that whichever course of action is best for profits is the one that will be taken. Just because labor wants more, and maybe even deserves more, doesn't mean that when they ask for more they won't be thrown out on their asses.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
In the US various insurance benefits are often void if you commit suicide (at least the larger benefits), which is a financial reason for classifying a suicide as an accident. And I have never heard of a US corporation paying a family of US workers due to suicide.
I think Foxconn is more compassionate in this specific instance than a typical US company, but the whole thing backfired.
but if you go postal and shoot up your office and the cops take you out, that's not suicide here in the US. so you're family gets life insurance benefits. you get a little infamy, and you can work out some of your pent up rage on helpless coworkers.
Of course it seems more embarrassing for your family for you to be a homicidal maniac, so suicide is still probably preferable.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
automating many parts of its business, a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs.
Why is there always a focus on the negative side of automation? It really means less work, same productivity. Humans no longer need to work as hard to produce the same quality of life.
The difficulty with these stories lies in the fact that it's a redistribution of wealth from the workers to the owners of the company, until those owners redistribute the wealth again by investing the savings. So it's difficult for the people who lose their jobs, as they now have to fight to get new ones. It's sad. But for humanity as a whole, extra efficiency means greater wealth, since we are now creating the same product with less work invested.
It raises everybody up in the long run. Compare medieval kings to lower middle class people of today and we find the kings did not have the amount of entertainment to choose from, the durable clothes, the variety of food available, the health care quality, perks like temperature control of their rooms, etc.
That's the overall and long term effect, the greater positive side, and something that is too often ignored.
Suicide? No.
Homicide? More likely, even if it means someone's party-boss/Executive Audi or VW becomes their coffin.
Not the most politically correct thing to say, but those people out of work would be too overwhelming of an amount.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They are surely going to enjoy their suicide compensation money, being dead... Please better arguments for the next time, foxcunt.
Can't believe this people blaming on the employees.
Why is there always a focus on the negative side of automation?
A) It puts people out of work
B) Retraining on the large scale does not work due to its inaccuracy and slow speed.
Now if there was a clear way to speedily transition people, you might have a point. That, and retraining only pays for retraining - you still have to find ways to survive.
It's not like those 1930's cartoons where they just jump off the unemployment line in a matter of seconds. It's more like years if at all.
It raises everybody up in the long run
In the long run, everyone is dead. The king, his round table, the Chinese "suicide" victims, Vincent Chin, the guy that offshored your job, and you over a long enough timespan.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
In China as in many Asian cultures (though please understand I am speaking in generalities, not absolutes) the family's well-being is often prioritized over the individual's. Which means that desperate people may come to believe that killing themselves has two benefits: 1, a large compensation payout; 2, one less mouth for the family to feed.
How dare you Slashdotters even sanctify this with statistics. Fuck you all.
Every Apple fan boy with a brand new iSomething up their arse should be screaming about the injustice of this decision.
These are the Subsistence lives of so many people we are talking about. They, and their families are fucked now.
How dare you all sanctify this with your glib humor.
Fuck you humanity.
Damian
That's why China is there. Their lack of concern of human rights is an asset.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They have announced recently that they will double the salaries for workers in Foxconn factories in China. Ok, so that got everybody to calm down, Apple and the Chinese workers as well. They actually don't intend to double those salaries. They launch this rumor (let's call it a Smoke Grenade) that they will close factories in China. After they let it simmer for a while they'll say that to keep factories open, they can't double the workers salaries but give only a 10% increase at most. Nobody will say anything else than "thank you for letting us keep our jobs".
After all, its freedom right ? freedom to say that the workers who committed SUICIDE because you were harranguing and exploiting them like slaves, to the point of LOCKING them in the factory, were actually killing themselves for financial compensation !!!!!!
private indeed does it better. better than anything, anyone. slave drivers of ancient times would be proud. dont misunderstand - they wouldnt be proud at the way slave driving was done - they would be proud with the successful justification and politically correct naming of slavery.
Read radical news here
You incorrectly presume that there is a something else, that they can move to that in a short enough time, and that they want to do so.
You incorrectly presume that the job will necessarily remain available in the face of competition with lower labor costs and/or greater automation. Whether they want to go elsewhere is often, in the end, irrelevant so the only important question is whether they can move. You are correct that sometimes it is very difficult in the short run but that is not an argument against automation.
Jobs that can be automated such that the total cost is lower will be automated. Competition will force the hand of the companies sooner or later. The ones that wait too long will go out of business. Note that sometimes it is cheaper/better to do a job without automation, particularly for high complexity low volume jobs. Your typical job shop has relatively low amounts of automation.
I wonder who thought it was a great idea to pay for suicides?
People respond to incentives. I hope we're learning that. It continues to be a costly lesson.
So, how do they say "Durk er duh!" in Chinese?
What are you doing to show you care for them? Are you going to write a check to some charity?
Or are you just whining and posturing on an Internet message board? You pretend to care ... as long as it doesn't personally cost you anything. Stop being a drama queen.
It affects the quality of the work by their treatment of their workers.
Treat the workers like junk? Get junk.
Treat them with some respect? Get a well-made product.
How do you kill yourself for financial gain, is this some kind of bizzarro insurance fraud? Kind of tough to spend the money, no?
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
There are at least 800,000 people here who would like to have a job...
Please tell me what the difference was. At least US allies tried to use all kinds of tech to change the human wave into something a bit more sophisticated. But the US poo-pooed those ideas and went for the human wave. Replace landingcraft with trenches and you had WW1 all over again.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Just go visit the stock markets after the next crash. They are dropping like flies.
Remember, people like the poster you respond to ain't comfortable with the dark void of their soul. So they seek to make excuses. They sound hollow even to them, but not as hollow as the void.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Except that Taiwan is a modern liberal democratic nation with 16,000 per capita GDP who imports
18 billion in US goods versus 23 billion in exports to the US. Taiwan is practically even with South Korea
in GDP per capita. If you look at purchasing power parity they already exceed Greece, Spain and Italy.
The reason Foxconn might leave china is not cost but quality. They have had numerous quality and labor problems
with goods from their PRC factories.
Nothing changes. In the west we had exploitative companies as well, still have to some degree read up on EA, and we had the same kind of struggles. In the end it seems to have worked itself out maybe mostly because we didn't have silly people from other cultures giving smart remarks from their comfortable lives won by the hard work of others.
Once a woman choose to be tramped to death for the right to vote. Now many women her age can't even be bothered to vote. On a site were the vast majority is upper white middle class with high paying jobs for a minimum of physical labour you have a discussion about how good/bad foxconn is were people work 14+ hour shifts 6-7 days a week. Last time anyone here did an all nighter was to play WoW. In China you do 30+ hours because the boss says so and when you die, nobody is there to sue the hell out of the employer. Here? If the boss gives you a mean look you sue for trauma.
And of course the fact that 99% here have gadgets made by foxconn doesn't in the least inspire a bit of "justification" spell "B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T-T-I-N-G" alone the lines of 'well, any job is better the no job".
Humanity, not found on slashdot.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I've been living here for 5 years. I've worked with Foxconn and many of their employees, from management on down. Here is the biggest shocker of all: How many deaths by suicide a year ago? 2 years ago? Ah, now you are starting to see something. This is a recent development. Know why? I do. The truth is something nobody in China, Foxconn or Apple wants anyone to know. Too bad I won't tell you, you wouldn't believe it anyway. Ok, you just might. Here's a hint: Think Apple and the lost iPhone prototype. Then, remember that there was another one found in Vietnam, where Taiwan has many manufacturers. Also, take into consideration China's taste for stealing technology to clone, copy or otherwise duplicate it for less. Another consideration, Apple's Nazi culture towards leaking Tech...and remember...in China, shyte rolls downhill. The managers never take the blame, just the people jumping out of windows because some asshat manager has just destroyed their entire future. Ah, now maybe you get it!
He wants to cut the suicide payments.
No, wait, he already did that by fiat. Why is he doing this again?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Read the original article. Gou, the CEO of Foxconn, talked at their annual meeting about moving some production to Taiwan, Vietnam, and India. It's not clear that they even intend to reduce their head count in China; that's a speculation by Oriental Daily. Foxconn has been growing rapidly, and they have too many people at one location. (Managing really huge plants is historically a headache. The maximum optimal plant size seems to be around 3,000, from modern US experience. All the economies of scale have been achieved by then. China is at an earlier stage of automation, though. The US at one time had single steel plants that employed 8,000 people with shovels. )
And 800,000 people would get a job where they are moving to..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
No outside corporation can control 51% of a chinese factory. You need a chinese "partner" who controls at least that much. No foreign ownership. They won't allow it, because they are smart. China is *protectionist* and profits from it. The anti protectionist people never mention that saying it is "bad", they completely ignore china because it proves they are wrong. China does everything they can to corner markets, keep their exports high, improve productivity, etc using currency manipulation and tariffs and by other means, like garnering very long range energy and raw materials contracts and access. USA is dumb, they allow foreign ownership and all sorts of other domestic economic policies that go to screw over their own people so that the top 1% can get richer. The next one the wall street jerks want is carbon cap and trade. They have the left wing environmentals completely faked out that this is a good thing, when all it does is strip wealth from everyone else and hand it over to wall street.
Scientists define a suicide cluster as three or more suicides in a specific location that occur over a short period of time. On average, there are five suicide clusters each year in the United States, according to psychiatric epidemiologist Madelyn Gould at Columbia University in New York City.
If the first suicide gets media attention, then it's more apt to trigger other suicides. So, Gould cautions, the way the media cover a suicide can be critical. "We know from studies that have looked at the impact of the media that there is something called the 'dose-response association.' So the size of the increase in suicides following a suicide story is proportional to the amount, and the duration, and the prominence of the coverage."
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
game theory stuff often does not impress me. so I am fine with protectionism. and I figure economic liberalism or whatever they are calling it now can be properly characterized as evil. Oh well, big topics.
But try this for protectionism. I do not know anybody pushing autarky? right now. Oh, maybe the North Koreans. Nor do I see a big complaint about some sort of international division of labor. I do see a lot of complaints about peope making money by looting, while just pretty much shutting down real production. I do think that bilateral trade agreeements between sovereign republics are likely to result in both parties coming out ahead. We used to favor that sort of approach.
As far as China, I figure if their labor power increases, everyone can benefit. Is the issue low wages? There are some numbers that say no. I figure it is pretty much economic policy. A very broad characterzation is the chinese want to increase their labor power. These days we could be a little more precise, but you get the idea. Do you care to take a shot at characterizing atlantic basin economic policy?
Put them on the social welfare until they find new employment. Seems like the most civilized way to do things.
Say, I'm the only bee in your bonnet?
And they are all mad as hell because they got caught.
SPIN as hard as you want you bastards.
I know it. You know it.
It is Slavery.
Steve Jobs got caught.
Now he is throwing a tantrum.
BECAUSE HE GOT CAUGHT.
I hope you shills are getting plenty of over time.
I hope you realize that the same ends are in store for you once the rapers and exploiters are done with you too.
The OVER REACTION serves two purposes.
One, to make the SLAVERS feel better.
The Second is to slam down hard on those uppity third world non-humans so that the capitalist exploiting pigs send a message to all the third world countries.
KNOW YOUR PLACE. WE WILL DESTROY YOU IF YOU DO NOT BOW DOWN BEFORE US. DO NOT DARE RAISE YOUR WAGES. YOU WILL WORK FOR NOTHING AND LIKE IT! BREATH IN TOXINS. DRINK DIRTY WATER. LIVE ON A BOWL OF GRUEL.
But it is not going to work any more. The internet, handi cams, you tube and forums such a slashdot expose corruption and explotation and the abuses.
This is the end of an era. No more playing one country against another. The world has caught on to the games of these exploiters. These slavers. These degraders and defilers.
Steve Jobs is mad that his shit hole factory got exposed, and people are killing themselves because they have no hope.
Run USA OSHA through there, I dare you. Throw open the doors. Let any blogger on the planet who wishes into the factories with a camera crew. Nothing off limits.
Steve Jobs is ANGRY that the exposure OF THE SUICIDES fucked up his product launch.
All the spin will cannot save you now. Take your billions and go away. May you never sleep at night. May the blood stain your hands forever.
Get off my planet.
Stop breathing my air.
Maybe there is a particular product that induces suicidal thoughts by exposure.
Anything from chemicals used in the industrial process that may have psychiatric effects.
One of the symptoms of chronic lead exposure is depression, and what are the odds of lead poisoning in a chinese factory?
(excluding the more sinister possibility of something like Stephen King's "Christine"... a cursed iPad anyone? )
China doesn't give a shit about workers, so why should Apple?
Trade barriers don't work very well and can even be counterproductive. The trade barriers on steel are one of the reasons a lot of manufacturing left the US in the first place starting a few decades back. A complacent steel industry kept prices high and quality low, so a lot of heavy steel users that could move did.
If you can drive people like slaves by first buying up and bulldozing their villages to put in your "compounds" where said work is done, then (as a consequence) becoming the only reasonable means of earning anything at all, you can exploit people like this.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/2398-Saturday-Economic-Musings.html
For a while.
Until they jump off the roof.
Parent poster wrote:
> "Suicide is about the most selfish thing you can do."
Sometimes it's understandable. Unending severe debilitating pain can do it. Don't knock it if you haven't been there - it begins to look logical after a few weeks, especially if the prognosis is pretty hopeless to begin with.
Maybe paying families huge sums of money when there's a suicide isn't such a good idea, general public. Things aren't always what they seem (and I'm not saying they the money does encourage suicides for money, just that it's a possibility).
Are we really being this shortsighted here? This is NOT about suicides.
* Foxconn requests Shenzhen gov. permission to expand 20%. .. fast forward a few months..
* Shenzhen gov. denies permission. (Their long-term goal is to push all factories up north to Dongguan and turn Shenzhen into a second Hong Kong or Shanghai with financial institutions etc.)
* To further aid Shenzhen's plans, Guangdong gov. sets to increase minimum wages (these can be set by local authorities, the central gov. just gives a guideline) .. fast forward a few weeks..
* Foxconn and many others are not to happy about this, but understand they will have to comply
* Workers are being thrown off the roof at Foxxconn by PSB personel to pressure Foxconn. (You have to understand that Foxconn's security guards are on a double pay-roll at the PSB. This is not a rumor and can be verified with the PSB. Second, people don't stab themselves twice and then jump off a roof, it clearly it murder, but both PSB and Foxconn have reason to cover this up.) .. a few days pass..
* Foxconn, not yet realizing that it's the government throwing these people off the roof, promises to raise salaries 20% to cheer up workers
* Of course workers are not stupid and know the 20% was coming anyway, to Foxconn is pushed to increase more and they announce 33%
* Foxconn figures out what is really happening: the gov is trying to push Foxconn out. If they can make one of two giants move up north, the rest will follow. (60% of the 80.000 factories in the area have already said they consider to move.) .. more time passes..
* Foxconn tries to get back at the government and says to raise salaries by 66%. This increases pressure on gov. to let Foxconn not only stay, but to expand. Also, if Foxconn clients can agree to this raise (partially due to public pressure at this moment), other factories have a shot as well at staying in Shenzhen and annoying the local government.
* It now looks like Foxconn may be giving up and giving in to Shenzhen's push to get rid of them. Though I wouldn't be surprised if Foxconn has more up their sleeve, possibly helped by politicians in the central government who don't agree with Shenzhen's plans to beat Shanghai at their game.
Read some more Chinese blogs and some less western mainstream media if you're really interested in the Foxconn story, beyond the fact that they assembled your iPhone 4.
This is a crap article based on another article which has been shown to be based on a bad translation of an earlier report. FOXCON IS NOT MOVING OR CLOSING ANY PLANTS. They are Opening a new plant in Vietnam to handle some of their overload. Thats it.
Unions lobbying politicians are part of the death spiral of California. People are only just starting to wake up to that fact. You're treading on very dangerous ground.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Animals living in herds do it all the time. Reducing the mouths to feed is a standard survival strategy of Nature that works even in humans.
However, if you are a factory/business/multinational, accepting to provide financial compensation means you are liable and accepting that you are guilty as charged. Therefore, denying the compensation can, and I expect, will be marketed as a statement of innocence.
Anyway, eventually Nature will find her way and my guess is that She doesn't need any more iPads.
Suicide != Sacrifice
http://www.indiatogether.org/2010/feb/psa-suicides.htm
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Under democracy in India, man exploits man. Under communism in China, it's just the opposite.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Automation will replace numerous unpleasant low-skill low-pay jobs with fewer more pleasant higher-skilled higher-paying jobs, and that's always good progress. Also, we should support any reduction in the trade imbalance with China, even if they're just moving to another country with a lesser trade imbalance.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Americans and Europeans should compare Foxconn to US and EU labor conditions in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
A typical example of delusion and denial in the upper food chain of a corporation. Rather than look at the real conditions in the factories - and the human condition of the workers. And then start to implement some real changes --- this would entail both real work AND admitting those who committed suicide had reason(s).
No - FoxConn is essentially saying those workers who committed suicide are "corporate terrorists" targeting the corporation, its image, and its bank roll. What a totally insane conclusion to come to. No doubt as as someones life descends
into a perfect hell and they are trapped or cannot see a way out --- they may think if I die this will end AND my family will get some good out of it.
BUT - they did not engage into a contract with Foxconn with that idea in their head. They were pushed to get to that point of desperation.
Another Epic Fail for FoxConn executives
Its not the years, its the mileage
Nice, but the longer one is on that, the more likely that employment will be harder to find.
Now what might work is something that forces not just the unemployed to the table, but also does so for the providers of the opportunities.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
You post a conspiracy theory and what happens? It is deleted, removed, buried and hidden...like it never existed. If that isn't proof of concept, I don't know what is!