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Chinese iPad Factory Staff Forced To Sign 'No Suicide' Pledge
An anonymous reader writes "Employees at Foxconn facilities in China, used to manufacture the iPhone and iPad, were forced to sign a pledge not to commit suicide after over a dozen staff killed themselves over the last 16 months. The revelation is the latest in a series of findings about the treatment of workers at Foxconn plants, where staff often work six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime in a month, and live in dormitories that look and feel like prison blocks."
FTFA: "And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages."
So, there is some form of enforcement after all. The legality of this, I couldn't say.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Yeah, they better not kill themselves OR ELSE!
See this is why I don't understand everyone bitching about the American economy being broken. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't... but one thing is for sure. We are using paid employee's to try and compete with a country that essentially uses prisoners to power there economy. Whos confused about why we are losing??
Their families losing the right to sue Foxconn for shitloads of money.
I bet that will work as well as that pledge to not use sarcasm I signed.
If they were forced to sign it, then it was signed under duress and it's not enforceable. :)
In America that's true, but I have my doubts about China.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
The vast majority of people who commit suicide are not thinking rationally at the time. No pledges, no clauses that say family members will only sue for the minimum monetary compensation allowable, will make a difference to someone not in their right mind.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Why every time Foxconn is mentioned it is automatically associated with Apple. Foxconn manufacturers for large number of clients including Logitech and Dell. Maybe I'm just being new again?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The legality of this, I couldn't say.
I'm sure China doesn't give a fuck. If they did, requiring an employee to work 70 hours a week for $10 a day and share living space with two dozen other employees wouldn't be legal in the first place.
That's akin to saying, "hey, when you kill yourself, they know we are torturing you, so please stop killing yourself".
Who's signing the "only work so many hours" pledge?
It seems to me this provides extra motivation.
If you try to commit suicide, but fail, you're now in breach of contract and out of a job. Which means two things: If you're going to try at all, it's best to ensure it succeeds. And if you still fail you've now got an extra motivation for giving it another try.
Then there's that just signing this thing is probably harmful. Somebody could find it to be an additional motivation to commit suicide out of spite. After all, few things are more demeaning than somebody else asserting such control over your own life, and killing yourself anyway is about the biggest statement one could make about that.
You mean the Duke lacrosse team which was falsely accused and then hounded by a rogue prosecutor for political reasons, who was eventually disbarred for his misconduct?
As usual, especially for the Daily Hate Mail, the title is extremely misleading. It's been covered on slashdot before, but describing Foxconn as an iPad factory, or even an Apple factory is like calling Amazon a "Stephen King bookstore".
The article strongly infers that the plant *only* makes Apple stuff.
I also see no mention in the article about Apple's responses to this, with higher wages paid per employee (compared to the same employees in the same factory making Xboxes, PS3s, Nintendo Wiis, Android handsets, televisions, microwaves, etc etc), although they did talk about how little they were earning, and inspections and rules set out in a code of conduct (although, enforcing this is clearly difficult).
So, nothing really to see here - typical of Daily Mail reporting. I'm just amazed they didn't try to work in a "gay, single-parent-mother asylum seeker claiming benefits and lottery money, causing cancer" angle somehow.
Prices are set to maximise profits based on what the market will bear; the extra cost of providing decent manufacturing conditions would have a negligible impact (if any) on end-user pricing.
What it would impact, however, is the income of the executives. We can't expect them to survive on some few hundred thousand a year pittance, can we? If the income isn't at least 50 times the national median, what would be the point in getting out of bed in the morning?
Anti-suicide nets were put up around the dormitory buildings on the advice of psychologists.
If you have to put up suicide nets and make people sign contracts promising not to kill themself then you're doing it wrong.
Story about China. Did you miss that?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Remember, this is China. The deck is stacked against the common man. The courts probably would enforce a contract that would be unenforceable in Western countries.
Clerk 1: Two people ... three people have fallen to their almost certain death!
Clerk 2: Must be a board meeting.
Monty Python brilliancy
I am officially gone from
The Wired article a published a month or two ago claims that the suicide rate at American colleges is higher than at Foxconn. According to Wikipedia, the suicide rate per 100,000 persons in the US is 11.1, and according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, there are between 8 and 25 suicide attempts for every reported suicide death. That gives us an attempted suicide rate of around 88 or 89 per 100,000 people.
Looking at the information on Foxconn in the linked article, it would appear that the attempted suicide rate is somewhere around 12 per 100,000 for the first part of 2010. That would come out to maybe 36 per 100,000 for the whole year?
Maybe the headline should be: Making iPads in a Chinese Factory Is Truly Awful, But You're Much More Likely to Kill Yourself if You go to College in the US.
Unless I'm missing something here. Also, the article appears to be pretty old.
They could threaten to kill themselves if forced to sign it. If they were clever about it, they could use it as leverage to force better conditions in the work place. That is assuming it wouldn't be cheaper for Foxconn to just hire a whole new staff. Deadlines may not make that possible though for Foxconn.
I doubt that would work.
FC Manager: Sign this pact that you won't commit suicide.
Employee: No. If you try to make me, I'll commit suicide.
FC Manager: You're fired. Get out.
FC Spokesperson: We are deeply saddened to learn that former employee #1785598 took his own life yesterday. He had a history of erratic behavior, even threatening to commit suicide at one point to his manager. In that same conversation, the manager tried to make him promise he would not take his own life, but sadly, was unable to reach him. Toodles!
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
Dear misinformed:
The Duke lacrosse team did not rape anybody. It was a false accusation and a prime example of how "presume guilt and punish immediately" is a bad idea. The falsely-accused students are now filing lawsuits for damages (like not being able to compete and reach professional level status). Plus a general level of HATE directed by professors to the students. (I always thought profs were secretly bastards at heart.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responses_to_the_2006_Duke_University_lacrosse_case#Duke_faculty_groups
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
They are very annoyed that they have to admit their products are built elsewhere. If you take a look on any device it'll always say where it was made or assembled. That is required by law. Almost all devices, that's all it says about that. However Apple stuff? Right before that they have to note "Designed in California by Apple." Reason is they want to try and deflect from the "Made in China" part. They don't want their Mac to be just another thing made in China.
Well, that makes the stories particularly juicy to the press when they relate to Apple and China. Most companies aren't bothered. They stamp the country of assembly on the box and call it good. So calling them out on it does nothing. You call out MSI on their motherboards being made in China and they'll say "Ummm yes, yes they are. Says so right on the board."
Also there's the fact that it seems Apple puts additional secrecy pressure on Foxconn and that their employees have been subject to additional restrictions and scrutiny due to Apple leaks. You don't see that with other products Foxconn makes. They don't have to keep everything super secret since companies don't put on the big show and their products are usually known well in advance of launch.
Way to avoid addressing the underlying problem.
It's not under their control. If they start treating their employees better, their costs will rise and they will either lose money or have to bid higher, in which case they'll lose contracts (and lose money). CM is a very competitive business, and Foxconn as a Taiwanese company is already at a disadvantage in some ways relative to mainland CMs.
There are several ways this can play itself out. The employees can unionise (which on the mainland will require overthrowing or radically reforming the government) and demand better wages across the entire industry. In that case, two things will happen. First, prices of finished goods will rise. Second, these companies will begin investing in places where unions aren't allowed (race to the bottom). Third, unemployment in places with unions will rise, encouraging the creation of non-union shops where standards are lower.
Another way this can play itself out is if the people who buy these goods start demanding verifiable standards of treatment for the people who manufacture them. This would have to be backed up with a willingness to (a) not buy products that fail to meet the standards, AND (b) pay much higher than current prices for them. This is unlikely because people in most developed countries are already living beyond their means and cannot afford to pay more.
We've seen all of this before. Some combination of these things will in fact happen, as they did in today's developed countries. Ultimately, unionised manufacturing workforces are not competitive and will die out, leaving these low-value activities to be moved to whatever country does the most to ensure that labour is cheap. This is nothing more complicated than Ricardian comparative advantage. As this happens, the more developed countries will find that their unemployed union workers' children look for higher-value work to do and shift their economy from low-value manufacturing to higher-value engineering and services. Meanwhile, those in the third phase (debt collapse) will be forced to rejuvenate their own "old economy" sectors and become more competitive with the rising economies. This will mean a diminution of lifestyle as they pay down debt and accept lower-paying jobs in which their products are competitive.
This is best viewed as a wave moving around the planet from east to west. Where the United States was in the 19th century, China is today. Where the United States is today, China will be in the 22nd century. None of this is new. None of it is surprising. It's just basic economics. While it may seem reprehensible to those of us with a recent cultural history of moral outrage with this sort of behaviour, the "robber barons" of 19th century America were no different. In time the Chinese will develop their own moral outrage for it, and put a stop to it. But doing so externally is all but impossible, because it requires fighting economics. Simply put, people will stop being treated this way when they start refusing to be treated this way even if it means not having a job. Happened before, will happen again.
FTFA: "And they were made to promise that if they did, their families would only seek the legal minimum in damages."
So, there is some form of enforcement after all. The legality of this, I couldn't say.
I don't think I'm violating a NDA here, because this is a "well known" liability limiting move.
So anyone killed by, say, an overhead crane dropping a pallet on their heads, can be ruled a suicide, and they promise their family only gets legal minimum in damages. I'm only slightly tongue in cheek with the crane example, as the company would rule the victim should have been looking up, only a suicidal person would not run away as the pallet falls on them, etc. Pretty much anything other than blatant 1st deg murder with numerous witnesses would qualify.
How much legal weight something like this holds is mysterious. If it intimidates just one victims family, it certainly pays for the cost of paperwork.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
"Sign this Pledge not to commit suicide."
"No."
"I said, sign it! Or Else!"
"Or else what? You going to kill me for not signing a pledge that says I won't do it myself?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Employees: Ahhhh!
(after being shot in the neck by the Chinese army)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
there's your enforcement. It's surprisingly hard to kill a human being when they don't have access to guns or tall buildings...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
A corporation exists to maximize profit. So if you're going to anthropomorphize a company it's not evil, it just doesn't care about evil.
So the proper term would be sociopathic.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The reason workers choose to work at Foxconn is precisely because it is better to work for them than to not have a job at all, or even work for another company. As much as we might talk about China being communist, this situation is entirely about capitalism. The worker's labor is worth precisely how much he or she is being paid, and the work conditions they must suffer through, otherwise Foxconn would have to better the wage and conditions to attract workers. Now, perhaps China as a whole isn't the greatest place to be, that a company like Foxconn is seen as an improvement, but that's a larger issue that ultimately will only be fixed by using China for cheap labor more and more until their employment levels and living conditions rise to western standards. As miserable as the work may be at times for these workers, it sure beats starving to death, or people would choose to starve.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
I'm not amazed that this would come out of the dailymail, but I am amazed so many slashdotters are falling for it.
I see the term slavery being thrown out there like Foxconn is raiding villages and making chain gangs.
The people who work in these factories are often young migrants, leaving their homes to find better wages. They would seek out overtime hours so they can earn more money to send home or for their dream savings. They know it's tough work, but it's a much better wage than what they would otherwise get. Some people can't handle the stress from being away from home and working a tough factory shift.
China is in that era of an industrial revolution. Family farms are becoming non-sustainable and the next generation is moving into the city to find work. Unskilled labor tend to end up in factories and the rapid life style change along with the isolation puts a lot of stress on these kids. I'm not saying Foxconn shouldn't relax their work policies, but the we're avoiding the true problem here.
When you get evicted from your house, your son is going to have to go too. Come to think of it where does it say that he's allowed to live in that house? The mortgage/rental agreement is in your name, not his.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
During peak periods of demand for the iPad, workers were made to take only one day off in 13.
To me that says the owners of Foxconn promised Apple a certain number of iPads and probably promised their other clients stuff and they made sure their people made that stuff damnit. It also seems pretty clear that the factories are the ones forcing people to sign these agreements, not Apple.
AFIK Apple continues to deal with these people, so that's damning, but the article never says that Apple is making these decisions.
If they were forced to sign it, then it was signed under duress and it's not enforceable. :)
Since you've found the loophole, the anti-suicide provisions don't apply to you. We're pleased to inform you that you've been transferred to the energy services division which will be happy to schedule your suicide. We think you have a bright future in biofuel.
they didn't "have" to sign it.... just like you don't "have" to have a job that decides they don't want you to smoke ... at all. They're more than free to get another job. There's only 1.3 BILLION other people competing! In many ways the US labor rules are at the far end of the "civilized" countries when it comes to what we allow "by the books".
I don't see what's wrong with the 12 hours, 6 days. During peak auto season most UAW workers work those kind of hours... sometimes even 7 days. I work at a steel company and guys in the mills do that all the time. Many, many jobs in the USA work those kind of hours... in fact it's the norm... nursing, steel mills, auto makers, cops. That's in the USA with Union jobs, what's the big deal. The only real difference in the USA that these people have nice houses with big mortgages and drive 45 minutes each way to work. Oh, and after working all those hours your cut-rate health insurance blames "your lifestyle" on all the health problems you have, not to mention the huge divorce rate in those jobs.
Realize when you hear nurses or steel workers get those big paychecks they really are SAVING their companies tons of money. Companies in the US should be hiring 1/3 more workers in a lot of cases.. but having existing workers work 1/2 more comes out cheaper because "fixed costs" per employee (Health, workman's comp, vacation, etc) all are based on a 40 hour week. Sure they get time and a half, or even double time... and how much is just health insurance rising? weigh that against consistently working massive overtime and even the spikes in insurance costs are trivial to what the company is making per employee. Don't believe a word of the "US Unions are ruining things".... remember non-union tech employees got "reclassified" so WE can work those kinds of hours for "salary"...
Don't see what all the outrage is because it happens in China... the only reason so much work goes there is that their hourly wage is less... and their countries have national health insurance so the companies don't have to pay it. By the time they get employees that can work like Americans though, they are getting close to paying the same kind of money once language and shipping come into account.
Come to think of it where does it say that he's allowed to live in that house? The mortgage/rental agreement is in your name, not his.
The rental agreements that I use have a section that describes the rights of minors to live in the space (and they are listed by name). If they are not minors, they are required to sign the lease (you are not allowed to have guest for longer than 2 weeks without permission, no matter their relationship to you).
IBM makes stuff in the US?
Not China, business. Used to be like this in the United States of America too, has nothing to do with the Government. Things became better in the US not because of the government, but because of Union organization and dollars and cents.
Same thing will happen in China as the US falls apart and becomes France but without the social safety net by the end of the 21st Century. Good times!
Suicides happen in all kind of economies, people get depressed, things happen in their lives, etc. - actually US suicide rate is higher then the China's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate). And if you count that there are 900 000 people who work for Foxconn the fact that only 18 people in 2010 committed suicide says that the rate is much lower than the average. It is 11.1 per 100 000 in US and 6.6 per 100 000 in China. So, you could say Foxconn improves the suicide rate vs. the average in China. Yes, working conditions are not that good on the factories, but I don't think that suicide rate is a good indicator.
I'm all for investigating abuses in Chinese labor and dealing with them, but tis article is counter-productive. First, it constantly refers to Foxconn only in relation to Apple, not mentioning the dozens of other corporations it supplies. It repeatedly refers to facilities run by "Apple's supplier" but doesn't mention if they were actual facilities that make things for Apple and which Apple audits yearly and openly publishes information about and what they found and what action they took. It mentions Apples audits in the phrase, "...but its[Apple] own audit reports suggest suppliers in China may not meet up to these standards." It does not mention the list of changes Apple required from various suppliers nor the numerous suppliers Apple fired outright for violating Apple's human rights policy.
I find this article irresponsible because it is just heaping bad press on Apple (not the rest of the industry) when in truth Apple is the only company I have been able to find actually taking a stand and doing something about the problem. There is no mention of Asus, Sony, Intel, Acer, Nokia, etc. who are all supplied by Foxconn. Thus readers are misled into thinking Apple is the issue. All this article does is motivate Apple to stop publishing audits and stop all the good work they've been doing to remediate the labor problem. I'd like to be the first to throw a big "Fuck you!" to the Daily Mail for their irresponsible, slanted journalism.
Somewhere Lazarus Long isn't rolling over in his grave.
I'm not sure if it's effective to "force" them to sign the document but this is a common way to deal with suicidal individuals from a mental health perspective. You get people to sign a form, even just one you scribbled out right there, or give a verbal commitment to not kill themselves until the next time you see them, when you get the commitment again. It works for most people. Most people really don't want to kill themselves, they want to end pain or maybe even cause pain but few people who attempt suicide want to do it. They consider it because they believe it's their only realistic option for dealing with their problems. This is generally true in America, I don't know if it's the case in other parts of the world.
Just saying that Apple's love for downplaying the China thing is why the media loves to jump on it. When you freely and openly admit to something, it isn't much of a story to the press because they can't make it a scandal. When you try and keep it more hush hush, they'll like it just because they are "revealing" something.
Why wouldn't it be legal? After all, it is about 1000 times better than folks living on the factory farms have it where it is 12 hours of work for a handful of rice.
The rural folks in China have it really, really bad and they are even more motivated to move to the city than the folks in Mexico are to come to the US. After all, in Mexico you might get $2 for a day's work and have your own shack. People are quite willing to cross the desert with signs that pretty much say "If you continue you will die" because they can make $50 a day and feed their entire family on one person's wages.
In China a little thing like suicide isn't going to deter them in the slightest. I suspect as long as they aren't hit by falling bodies they are perfectly OK with a 1% chance they might really want to commit suicide if they take a crappy job.
Many things are made by Foxconn. Also from what I've read, their suicide rate is quite a bit lower than the average suicide rates in Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturing plants. We only hear/care about this one because they make i-devices. I mean come on, the very title of this summary should be a glaring indicator why anyone cares. Foxconn is not a "chinese iPad factory," its a massive global technology company manufacturing pipeline.
While I understand the sentiment, I wonder how much chinese technology you are bound to encounter in all the technological gadgets you own. Be it Computers, phones or whatever. Can you vouch for the working conditions of the workers in each case?
What about clothing?
In my case. I'm 99% ignorant and am forced to take price-quality relation as practically the unique factor of a purchase.
Fyi, third world, s40 phone (posting from it).
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
It was out of 8 people, that's why they're concerned.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Actually, they are telling Foxconn to clean up their act - reference
For what it's worth, from what I've read a big motivation in these suicides is accident compensation for families or somesuch. That's more a product of society in general. Both theirs and ours.
Given that the going rate in Southern China for electronics factory work is about $6 per day, the company dorm is probably more comfortable than the rural shack they were raised in, and these people are away from home in an area where they have no social connections outside work with the objective to save as much money in as short a time as possible so they can go back to their village and improve the life of their family, I don't think your idea of legality would be particularly welcome there.
What do the workers in the HUMANCENTiPAD factory have to sign?
Why wouldn't it be legal?
I apologize for being Captain Obvious here, but it's not legal because it's illegal - which is to say, Chinese law mandates 40-hour day, and all businesses officially comply.
This entire thing makes me a little embarrassed to use an Iphone tho it is required by work.
What in makes you think that other companies are any better in this regard? Apple isn't the only company that contracts with foxconn you know. That said, the apple pr department should be ashamed for not having a better response.
Apple is probably the best in the industry for working conditions in China and they do publicize that. Newspapers, however, don't care because Apple's popularity makes demonizing them sell more papers, even if it's doing so by misinformation. Apple audits their suppliers, publishes the audits openly and actually takes corrective measures. They dropped a number of suppliers because of poor working conditions, too long of hours, or child labor. They forced others to change policies and provide compensation to workers in order to keep their business. Basically no other company in the industry does this. Daily Mail should be ashamed of the way they spin Foxconn as an "Apple supplier" without mentioning all the other companies like Intel, Nokia, HP, Acer, etc. and not bothering to find out if the plants they are complaining about are the ones Apple audited and required changes at, or service some other company entirely. And they can't even plead ignorance because they mention Apple's audits as one of their sources.
Please stop your silly neo-Marxist comments. The only reason those workers put up with $10 daily and those dorms is simply because their other alternatives stink even more.
My mistake. They are clearly living in a capitalist paradise.
Let's see what they use as examples of excessive hours and draconian rules.
â- Excessive overtime is routine, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip, seen by the Observer, indicated that the worker had performed 98 hours of overtime in a month.
98 hours of overtime. In a month. I'll grant that's a lot of overtime. If he's working a 48-hour week, call it 192 hours straight time a month, and then 98 on top of that? If he's not working weekends, yeesh, that's a month of 14.5-hour workdays. That's hard, is really is, most people won't work days like that for a sustained period of time unless they're medical residents. Even if he *is* working on weekends, which if you're working that much OT you are, then it would take working 12-hour shifts on the weekdays and then coming in for 10-hour days on the weekends. *That* I've done, and plenty of other people have too without it being "inhumane."
And that's the article's outlier. Look at that legal limit. 36 hours a month? Jesus, the unions in this country would strike long and hard if an employer instituted a flat cap of 1.2 hours/day OT. Raise your hand if you've never worked more 36 hours a month OT. Now get off the computer and go get a job.
â- Workers attempting to meet the huge demand for the first iPad were sometimes pressured to take only one day off in 13.
Wow. Really? There's a rush of demand and you're so busy you have to work through the weekend? That happens so often in every business that it's a standard joke. And note even the wording: they're not required to, they're *pressured* to, and that only *sometimes*. Again, raise your hand if you've never worked two weeks off without a break.
â- In some factories badly performing workers are required to be publicly humiliated in front of colleagues.
Okay, this has never happened to me, it's not really a Western culture thing, outside of British public schools. American schools used to stick poor performers in the corner with a dunce cap, if Gasoline Alley and other such comics haven't lied to me, but I guess that's gone out of style.
â- Crowded workers' dormitories can sleep up to 24 and are subject to strict rules. One worker told the NGO investigators that he was forced to sign a "confession letter" after illicitly using a hairdryer. In the letter he wrote: "It is my fault. I will never blow my hair inside my room. I have done something wrong. I will never do it again."
Crowding? And strict rules? In China? Getthefuckouttahere.
â- In the wake of a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories last summer, workers were asked to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and pledging to "treasure their lives".
Ah. The suicides. First, if Foxconn has a suicide problem, this isn't a dumb policy. The "I shalt not kill myself note" is actually a fairly standard bit of psychiatric treatment for would-be suicides, sort of like the suicide hotline phones on some bridges. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but the fact that they're doing it doesn't demonstrate that they're inhumane and don't care about their workers, it demonstrates just the opposite.
And does Foxconn have a suicide problem? I doubt it. Foxconn's huge. They've got a million workers, 17 of which killed themselves over a five-year period. So that's a rate of .34/100k/year. China's overall suicide rate it 6.6/100k/year, so employees at Foxconn are killing themselves at a rate of about 1/20th that of the general population. In *China*. They're killing themselves at a rate of about 1/30th of the US population. So maybe this policy doesn't really demonstrate concern for their workers. Maybe it's just a pointy-haired-boss response to a stupid media panic fed by a general innumeracy amongst the population, I don't know. But one thing it's not is inhumane.
And then there's this bit:
I own 50% of my company. We have a few employees that work between 8 and 10 hours a day, and some other part time (4 to 6 hours).
My associate and I get to the office at 8 A.M, and stay there until midnight most days, we work Monday through Saturday, but we also answer our phones and get some telecommute hours on Sundays. We rarely take any holidays off, and since there is no god, we even work on christmas. Last year, I only took 6 days of vacations.
We work harder than any of our employees, and we like it that way. We enjoy what we do (we code), and come in to the office every day with a huge smile. I'm single, so it's easier for me. My associate is married, 2 children, and he still manages to put in almost as many hours as I do.
Dedication to what you do is a great thing, and working hard shouldn't drive anyone to suicide. It's the other half of the problem that drives this people to kill themselves. It's having a life with no purpose other than to serve your capitalist overlords.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Summary: "staff often work six 12-hour shifts a week, 98 hours of overtime in a month"
FTFA: "One payslip showed a worker did 98 hours of overtime in one month"
98 hours is not the "often" case, but one extreme occurrence.
It isn't right to treat factory workers like they work in IT just because they are building high-tech equipment.
No matter where you go, there you are.
or how about the KRUPP way? that's the industry what ford tried to copy but failed, because he forgot about the worker. you know what's the best way to shaft communists? give better benefits and education so they can work better and also not feel so lost in a mindless job with no end in sight.
do those foxconn drones have any possibility to build up skills and creativity? hell no. even the work they do would be better done by machines - but it's simpler to take a huge mortage and build a city and use interchangeable low skill workers and then if a big order comes just make the assembly line work faster! that's the mistake ford made, he could have produced a lot more if he had spent more time engineering the line better, than by simply switching the line to work faster and by throwing more people at it. and that is why the usa auto industry has bankrupted itself many times over the decades, the legacy of acting like ford. and guess what americans have been pushing as the industrial genious who's methods you should follow? well, ford. he is after all the guy who invented the assembly line, though assembly lines had been in use since ancient egypt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp for those in the dark(it's not a total success story, but illustrates the difference).
and how swatch fucked over all the far east clock makers? essentially by making a clock making machine.
unions tend to work on the principle that the work is eternal, whilst in reality all manufacturing and development is temporary and continous improvement just makes sense for everyone, it also makes working not so boring that you want to kill yourself.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.