Slashdot Mirror
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
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
There's massive differences. For one, the Communists used their political power to gain economic power. And in the US, the Capitalists used their economic power to gain political power. They are like complete opposites. Or would be, if we could tell them apart.
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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.