Slashdot Mirror
Foxconn's Other Dirty Secret: the World's Largest "Internship" Program
pigrabbitbear writes "In light of a series of reports that have emerged over the years, one of many dark stories of suicide now points at one of the lesser-known but more unsavory aspects of Foxconn's much-criticized labor practices: with the help of schools and government officials, the company runs a massive internship program built not on voluntary education but on 'compelled' factory work for teenage students. According to Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation."
now! :p
I'm looking forward to working my way up. Some of the old timers have made it all the way up to the roof they said.
So, the next time you see an internship "coworker" in your company, do the math, and get the hell out of this sweat-shop.
You got your iCrap (TM) why would it matter to you how it was made and who made it? It's so shiny and Apple claims it really, really cool.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
One day you might get paid!
same o' as in the 1st world!
Is this a Bill Clinton program?
And their goals of enforcing U.S. anti-piracy laws on every nation in the world:
http://www.cfr.org/united-states/debate-over-anti-piracy-laws/p27208
I feel incredibly guilty for not researching the company behind my Kindle before giving them my money. Of course, I'd feel even guiltier if I were reading this post on my Kindle.
Train 'em right, and they'll never leave.
Wasn't there a church with that same philosophy?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
So you are putting no sweet anbd low at the same level of FORCED UNPAID LABOR by underage students? Stay classy iTard
"In light of a series of reports that have emerged over the years, one of many dark stories of suicide now points at one of the lesser-known but more unsavory aspects of Foxconn's much-criticized labor practices: with the help of schools and government officials, the company runs a massive internship program built not on voluntary education but on 'compelled' factory work for teenage students. According to Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation
Which is also called slavery.
This is yet another reason why we shouldnt be manufacturing in hellholes that will bend over backwards for business, but snap the backs of the people that work for them (should they ask for more than the company approved allotment of freedom).
Perhaps US & EU manufacturing isn't a bad idea after all.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I was with you right up till the iTard line... Foxconn and really china's labor practices in general are horrific, but it isn't apple to blame, it is the entirety of silicon valley, and possibly some blame can go on the U.S government and their lobyests for more or less doing nothing to discourage companies from off-shoring everything that is humanly possible to do.
This downplay was brought to you by Chinese manufactured hardware.
~50 years of rationalizing US involvement in China has been predicated on the idea that the US will help make China a better place. Well, this is the decade of truth. Cisco got paid to build the 'Great Firewall of China', and Apple - and many others - have made fortunes exploiting cheap labor. Will the US now use it's hard won influence to make China better, or was that all bullshit?
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
the whole summary is linkbait. Follow the articles... the internship program may be unpaid (like internships in the US mind you), but it's not "unvoluntary". From rtfa:
* "Liu had traveled hundreds of miles for a chance to get hands-on experience working for China’s leading electronics maker."
* "Liu’s internship — which he landed through a labor placement firm in the nearby city of Guangzhou — would have included housing, food, and a small stipend estimated to be about half the salary of a typical factory worker"
if you actually read the text, the worst you can say is that many Chinese schools require internships in order to graduate. This is probably on par with US vocational schools. So let's hold off on the "zOMG won't somebody think of the childrenz!"
me:
maybe we can keep thinks on a more even tone, for the sake of conversation?
you:
Stay classy iTard
'nuff said.
harsh! would a shill tell you to stfu? if you look at it from the perspective of /.'s silly shrill biases recently, any reasonable poster must be a shill. Actually, I take it as a compliment - my first "shill" ad hominem. Is there an achievement badge for that?
I like how you glazed over the part where he KILLED HIMSELF a month later.
dude probably had mental problems. who kills themselves over an internship after just a month?
"Who would like to join our slavery program? Anyone? ... You'll get college credit." --Ignignot
lastly, if you rtfa there's nothing about underage students. it's vocational college students. no 12 year olds in the sweatshops. sorry if that messes with your mental image.
... but it isn't apple to blame
Correct. Their shareholders deserve the blame. Apple's just a corporation. Own Apple stock? You're a slaver. Buy Apple products? You enrich slave owners. FOAD.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
You read this part, right?
The Henan provincial government declared that 100,000 vocational and university students would be sent on three-month internships at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plants.
At one vocational school in Zhengzhou, wrote Hu Yinan, students were informed of the government’s requirement after the summer semester had begun, and that “all those who refuse would have to drop out.”
The excellent documentary/drama hybrid "24 City" (made by talented Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke) has a lot of details on this practice (at least as it existed at one time). Many of the participants talk about mandatory factory internships in high school (considered a communist obligation, apparently). You got assigned to a factory in your junior year and worked there from then on (part time at first, apparently). Then you either go to college or move on to full-time. They made it sound pretty benign. But then again, they made it sound pretty benign when the government forced families to break up too.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We invented unpaid internship programs here in the US!
You seem to have missed this part: "This isn’t the venerated internship of the privileged college student, building valuable work and life skills with school credit and on-the-job training in place of pay – if such an internship even still exists. Historically, Foxconn’s low-wage internships involve essential factory labor by poor students, some of whose areas of study have nothing to do with electronics, and turn the “school credit” idea on its head. According to SACOM, vocational students, including those studying journalism, tourism and languages, have had practically no choice but to participate in such internships if they want to graduate from their schools. As temporary workers, they have little legal protection or recourse in the event of injury, over-work, or underpayment. And if they complain, they could jeopardize their diplomas."
McDonald's food probably qualifies as industrial goods, and is probably 99% made in the in the good ole USA!
I8-D
Was someone going to post a link to where I can buy a smartphone which wasn't made in a sweatshop in Asia? Preferably one which is a member of the Fair Labor Association and gets great marks?
Mmmkay thanks.
yes, a shill would. shills are little more than paid trolls.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
especially considering how many kill themselves just to get the internship
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
i'm sorry...what were you saying about ad hominems? being rude or unpleasant never proved anyone factually wrong. just factually unpleasant.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
WOW! A bit harsh. How do you know what his mental state was when he killed himself?
And just so you know mental states can change very rapidly. It is possible that there was a lot going on that will never be known. How much of it was Foxconn's fault is what the real concern is. I know personally that high stress environments do not add to one's mental well being. I had a job that had what I would consider unreasonable demands, and if I was faced with the prospect of ruining my life and quitting(like was suggested in TFA) or continuing under those demands, there's a possibility that I wouldn't be making this post. And I consider myself to be perfectly fine mentally. If Liu had similar issues with his job, and was unable to leave, then I can see that it would be very reasonable why he'd kill himself.
Might want to look at more than just the fact that peoples lives are making your i-products cheap.
second "shill" ad hominem. Better switch to AC so my karma doesn't tank. Is there some place I can go to get paid for my "shilling?" I'll line up for some of that!
but it isn't apple to blame
I disagree. Apple is contracting with Foxconn to churn out millions of iDevices. Regardless of what other Silicon Valley companies are doing, Apple is the one that is dealing with FoxConn. If they think that the workers deserve better treatment, they have it in their power to see that their demands are met; if they aren't, then they can contract with someone who will. "I'm just following the status quo," is a poor defense.
I work for a company that deals with a lot of contractors. If a contractor isn't living up to our expectations (usually safety related), we find a new company to do that work. If they're not living up to our standards, they don't come on our site. Our safety numbers reflect this. (I think our bottom line benefits, too, but those numbers are a little trickier to pin down.)
I think that a company's handling of contractors reflects their values. Apple (and I guess the rest of Silicon Valley) values money more than good working conditions.
uh oh a h8r. are you directing your response to me or to the AC parent? the only ad hominem is from him.
Tell us about the job that nearly drove you to kill yourself. Oh wait, you probably can't do that, because it would show you are either a) lying or b) a pussy.
exactly my point. mental illness is multifactoral. Let's agree that there are many contributing causes. The statement "foxconn casued the suicide of this dude" is false. We agree, yes?
Apple might do better to just automate the manufacturing process. Putting together things like the Sony Walkman and cell phones has been automated by others for years. Apple makes so many identical units and has so few product variants that they're the classic case for hard automation. Most of the other cell phone makers have far more product variants.
Apple, though, may no longer have in-house manufacturing expertise. They also may be out of touch with their supply chain
chillax, AC. parent is relating a story from his experience. i don't doubt him, and even if he did make it up, the point he is making still stands. Things like suicides are multifactoral and there is no single cause.
Holy shit! Foxconn has nets out their fucking windows to catch suicidal workers attempting to leap to their death.
Gosh, you think knowing your entire life is going to be a meat grind might make someone jump out a window? In the real world, absofuckinglutely!
Slashdot is dead.
workers saflty / labol laws apply to temps also in some cases the IRS has ruled the temps to be full employees in some cases.
* your internship turns out to be menial. In the US it's filing papers, fetching coffee. Same deal that is breaking the law.
* vocational students must do internships as part of their education. But the VOC part is doing a real job part of the class load not being a copy / coffee boy.
tfa: "Foxconn revealed that Liu’s internship had been terminated about a week after it began, on July 7, because he failed to show up for work for several days, and that the company had been trying to arrange to have him sent back to his hometown."
sounds like he only put in a few days work, and foxconn let him stay in the dorms for a few weeks with no work, then he killed himself. Sounds unstable to me.
At least for phones. I have a GS2 and my battery is made in Korea, and the last time I pulled one apart it seemed that all the parts were labelled as made in Korea as well. I supposed perhaps it is assembled in China, or perhaps Samsung makes other products there, but I don't see any MIC logos in my phone.
In the U.S. the internship at least pretends to be related to your studies. Journalism majors don't end up assembling cars in Detroit. If they end up as coffee gofers, they at least bring that coffee to journalists and get a chance to see how journalism works in the real world while they're at it.
In the U.S., interns aren't 'exempt' from workplace safety or from compensation if they are injured. Typically this means that the employer bends over backwards to keep them away from anything more hazardous than a ballpoint pen.
They're sending people on "Jobseekers Allowance" into "internships" with the likes of Tesco (our own national Wal-Mart), on the promise of gaining useful job experience which will gain them employment. So they stack shelves for the duration of their internship, which gives them literally zero marketable experience (and indeed, probably damages their prospects - who wants to hire a shelf-stacker for anything less menial?)
If they leave after a short "cooling off period", their benefits will be cut off, removing even the social safety net provided by the state. While Tesco have been recruiting unpaid interns on a voluntary basis for some years now, this recent trend is essentially state-sponsored slavery, and sounds eerily like the complicity of the Chinese local government in these Foxconn internships.
Leapfrog Technology Group abuses interns
Here is the job add with some added mark up
Fun points are up 6 months full time with no pay
and they have the balls to say "This means that if you don't believe there is any value to 12 weeks of unpaid on the job training, then this opportunity is not for you. We're looking for those individuals with long term aspirations in mind, not someone simply looking for a paycheck."
added mark up start with --
What is an Information Technology Internship?
An IT Internship is both an educational experience and a potential full time job after completion.
An IT Internship teaches students how to apply existing skills to real-world environments.
An IT Internship gives students the opportunity to learn new skills to better prepare for the competitive job market after graduation.
An IT Internship offers a variety of positions in at various types of organizations.
--point 4 is part of payed jobs
We offer internships to highly motivated individuals who want to enhance their IT exposure while working for a technology company focused on consulting and managed IT support. Our IT operations are located both in Chicago's Loop. We are currently seeking two interns to assist with our outsourced support program for our client located in the Chicagoland area.
Desired Experience
1 - 2 years --For a Work for free job?
Desired Education
High School or higher --OK
Desired Technical Skills
Windows 7, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Remote Access, Remote Desktop, Active Directory Administration, Basic Group Policy. --ok
Desired Soft Skills
Additional third party application skills and network infrastructure a plus. Ability to heavily multitask, excellent written and verbal skills, ability to understand business concepts and operations, independent worker, punctual, professional, asks detailed questions.
Must enhance skills on their own time when necessary at home or in office. --so not only is this work for free it's work off the clock at home as well?
Job Description and Career Opportunity
Throughout the course of each day, Leapfrog Technology Group delivers the absolute highest quality and most reliable technical support and network design\implementation services to small and medium organizations between 5 to 150 computers with one or more servers. Leapfrog is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in the Midwest Region, focusing on network infrastructure, advanced network infrastructure and managed services. Established in 2002, the company employs a small group of highly capable senior engineers focused on providing IT strategy and ongoing operational support.
We are currently seeking candidates through our Campus Relations Program for our Information Technology Development Program. This program provides challenging assignments and exceptional growth opportunities. In your role as a Help Desk Analyst, you will expand your skill set by providing prompt and effective support for our clients technical needs. Additionally, Leapfrog has a web design division, provides hardware\software sales, provides project management services, and in this role, additional non technical skills will be developed. This internship requires heavy multitasking, use of technology software to ease the burden on the support specialist, and is extremely challenging. Even for seasoned IT professionals, a role as an IT consultant is a very challenging one. We believe that this will be a position in which the staff is held to the highest standards and will be held accountable to use Leapfrog's proven methodologies.
Must have the following qualities:
Business savvy: You are smart and you understand the business implications of your ideas. You are successful in translating classroom training into workplace solutions.
Results focused: You always give it your best but you're not satisfied until you've accomplished what you intended on completing.
'nuff said, unless you happen to be irony impaired. (In which instance, it probably doesn't matter what I say.)
Vocational training, even if not directly related to the students chosen field is not only suggested by the Chinese Labor law, its nearly required to be done by universities. During the Mao era, sending students off to farms to work the fields was considered a "good" educational experience for the students, now that China has viable factories to handle the students, they are sent there.
Article 66 The State, through various means, take various measures to expand vocational training undertakings, the development of professional skills of laborers, improve the quality of workers and enhance their employment capability and work ability.
Article 67 The people's government at all levels should develop vocational training into the socio-economic development planning, and various forms of vocational training to encourage and support qualified enterprises, institutional organizations, social organizations and individuals.
Article 68 The employing units shall establish a vocational training system, the extraction and use of funds for vocational training in accordance with state regulations, according to its practical, planned way and laborers with professional training.
Fact #1 - Foxconn currently employs 1.3 MILLION people. It employed 920,000 people in 2010 when the suicides happened.
Fact #2 - The number of suicides (and attempted suicides) in a year that sparked "outrage" is 18.
Fact #3 - The suicide rate in the United States is 11.8 per 100,000 people.
Fact #4 - The suicide rate in the Peoples Republic of China is sitting at 22.2 per 100,000 people.
Fact #5 - Basic math skills, show that Foxconn enjoys a suicide rate of 2 per 100,000 people.
Don't you think that the suicide rate would be higher then the rest of China if things were actually that bad? After all its a tenth of the rest of China, and its nearly 6 times under the American suicide rate.
Fact is, currently in China, based on what I'm getting from Chinese media, and the wife's family, jobs are in a shorter supply then people who are leaving rural areas to go to work in these factories. Companies like Foxconn are well known, and people fight over the jobs.
The internships are paying at least minimum wage, as the article suggests. Foxconn on top of the salary of its employees includes free accommodations and food, which makes Foxconn a very attractive place to work as many of the employees work there simply to afford to send their income back "home" where their parents live in impoverished conditions. China is labelled a "developing" country for a reason.
Overtime in China is restricted to no more then 36 hours a month, and no more then 3 hours on any one day, overtime must be paid out at 1.5 times. Over time on weekends is automatically double time, and over time on holidays is triple time. Salaried workers like here, where you could work a 60 hour a week without any additional compensation is outright illegal.
Yes workers do start work at say 8am, and end at 8pm in China, giving them a 12 hour day, however, like is the custom in many countries (including Europe) lunch breaks in China typically involve at least 2 hours, and 4 hour lunch breaks are common. There working hours before reaching over time is however limited to 40 like most of the world. Which is similar to here, you work from 9am to 5:30pm, with a half hour unpaid lunch in many jobs or you simply get docked the half hour's pay between 9 to 5.
As for this "living minimum wage" its not a issue with Foxconn its a issue with everyone in China, which is why the Chinese have been increasing it between 15-30% per year for the last few years. The Chinese standards of living are increasing, costs are increasing due to the industrialization, and while it might not be ideal, their minimum wages have been increasing at a greater rate then any developed nation. Complaining about that, is like complaining that the 7.25$ that is minimum wage in NY is the company that employs you fault that it costs 3 times that to live in NYC. It happens everywhere
Yes, but WHY do they work with Foxconn? Because they want some extra profit.
Even so, if they had even a shred of morals, the moment they found out how things stand, they should have started looking at other options. If they say they didn't know things were that bad when they started working together, it would be easy to believe, since I doubt executives would have had any reason to visit the worker dormitories, but after all the things coming to light in the past few months ... well, let's just say it takes a very unique person to keep enabling slavery. But it's not just a person, but a group of them.
"According to SACOM, vocational students, including those studying journalism, tourism and languages, have had practically no choice but to participate in such internships if they want to graduate from their schools. As temporary workers, they have little legal protection or recourse in the event of injury, over-work, or underpayment. And if they complain, they could jeopardize their diplomas." Why would a vocational school require you to go to work for Foxconn to get qualified school credit or to even get your diploma, especially since electronics/technology isn't in your area of interest? Why would they even care where you intern? or even if you intern at all?
Chicago Bread LLC / Panera Bread no pay, drive site to site and Assist with deliveries, inventory, ordering supplies.
They want you to have drive 20-50 miles to get to some of the stores? Will they pay for that? It can cost $15-25 in gas / other car costs + tolls that can add up to about $3-4 each way?
-deliveries, inventory! a intern is not a shipping, copy, coffee boy.
Hear is old job ad for them
IT Internship
Chicago Bread LLC, dba Panera Bread, is looking for an IT Intern to help the IT team in the Chicago market. Gain real-world experience in the work force with a well-known company!
Job Responsibilities:
Support the IT Team in the maintenance of hardware, software and other systems
Must troubleshoot issues with equipment like printers, computers, servers and register repairs
Assist with deliveries, inventory, ordering supplies, laptop management and server room management
Education:
Must be in pursuit of an Associates or Bachelors degree in computer science or have an
AS or BS in IT and looking for experience in the field.
Desired skills:
Excellent communication, time management and interpersonal skills
Strong leadership/motivation skills
Positive attitude
Excellent analytical and problem solving ability
Ability to travel to cafés for support
Hours:
Part time -- 2-3 days a week or as needed
Location:
3051 Oak Grove Road
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Email resume and school schedule
Location: Downers Grove, IL
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: no pay
It seems both sad and appropriate that these conditions are revealed on the Charles Dickens Bi-Centennial. That this garbage still exists is a crime. This is where unfettered Capitalism ( not a Free Market, if labor can't say no it is not a Free Market) leads to. And the Libertarians would be more than happy to have us all enslaved by the corporations.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Bloody hell, and they call themselves communists? That's fascist if I've ever seen it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Doesn't sound all too different from the thousands of interns that work unpaid internships in Washington DC. Instead of working for Foxconn assembling useful products however, they slave away for the US government, think tanks and NGO's making coffee, churning out white papers no one reads and other drudge work with the promise that the networks they build will one day land them a magical job in the political machinery.
Seems like the Chinese have learnt the lessons of capitalism all too well...
While Foxconn is an apparent beneficiary, the actual responsible party is the Chinese government. It is not stated whether Foxconn had any involvement in legislating the policy. The Henan provincial government is reported as having mandated internships as a requirement of completing a course of study, while undefined local government agencies appear to have a kickback scheme for filling worker quotas, also linked to graduation. Under free-market capitalism, the government has no say in education, and cannot coerce students into labor while concurrently enriching itself. Such empirical consequences of government intervention in the economy should give pause to those calling for a similar environment in the US.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
These young people will have no time to make any trouble to the government. Do they have any time to think? Or the only thing thay think about is how they hate Apple and other american companies?
It does get really hard to show up at Occupy Wallstreet and protest against unfair practices while holding a shiny iPad whose screen was cleaned by hand with n-hexane. So there's a natural urge to downplay this stuff and treat Apple as a different sort of company. Otherwise they'd feel compelled to use pen and paper, and you just can't look cool at Occupy protests if you are using pen and paper...
The problem is that such choice is made under duress.
Foxconn is like a slavemaster that beats you less; they still beat you like a slavemaster, but it is with precision instruments and your chains are of the highest quality. Should you wish to object, you get shot and disappeared by the government.
If they really were free, people wouldn't have any trouble speaking about Foxconn without anonymity.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They don't have any other options since the private sector thinks that anything but a supplicant labor pool is too generous.
Why not make it so that the job seeker gets to choose the employer, and the employer can't refuse them? Same bargain, just with the tables turned.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
foxconn is a 19th century factory.
With the company store
On site living
overtime that exceeded the legal limit
little worker safety
workers being humiliated for messing up
Why the western corporations doesn't have even a single suicide of any kind reported to date is the real conundrum. ....so our workers can have a chance at catching the Chinese in suicide numbers.
We are falling seriously behind the Chinese factories in suicide rates, and we seriously need to pick up the pace.
I for one call on our governments to remove all those suicide prevention contraptions from our bridges, overpasses, train tracks, highways, tall buildings, etc
I just can't get enough of these heart warming stories, and we seriously need to spawn more of them locally, and not just import them from China.
In California, they were pushing to implementing the same thing. They were going to make it a requirement for High School graduation. Yes, they were going to sell it as a requirement to "Volunteer", but in the English I speak, once you are required to do something, you are not "Volunteering".
That is the same requirement that California tried to implement for it's High Schools.
Honda, Toyota and Nissan: Golfcarts assembled in USA from foreign and domestic parts, in states with worker hostile laws
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Agriculture and the defense industry, along with a energy sector that can potentially supply all of the US's power needs (hello, good old dirty coal!), is all the US needs to survive in a turbulent world.
All else can be outsourced to countries that the US can smartbomb into submission.
I'm not sure what to think of this story, but I was surprised when I spoke to two mainland Chinese co-workers about the issue of worker conditions in China. Essentially they said that only Apple has the power to do anything about this issue. The Chinese government won't do anything, Foxconn and other manufacturers won't do anything, the Chinese workers are too powerless to do anything. Only Apple has what they phrased as "moral standing". The Chinese government and Foxconn are viewed as amoral.
I also read an interesting article the other day about the planned inspections. The author, a person with experience in doing inspections, says the currently planned third-party inspections won't work. He suggested instead Apple place an employee representative on-site permanently ensure compliance.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Foxconn-Inspections-Are-Good-PR-but-Apple-Needs-to-Protect-Workers-407229/1/
Unless you're posting this on a Commodore64 Im going to conjecture that you and almost every other slashdot user are enriching "slave owners". Do you think there are many high-volume commodity electronics manufacturers that don't use Foxconn or lesser known manufacturers who use similar practices?
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
You totally miss the educational/motivational part of such internships !
Once the students have worked during 3 months in these factories, they'll learn the following values:
1) if you fail your studies, that's where you'll work until the end of your life
2) if you succeed in your studies, you'll probably want to change the future working conditions in China.
3) if you excel in your studies, you'll be the next bosses, and these are good lessons on how to exploit people.
These are valuable work and life skills !
tell me about this some people have that BS idea that People not only need 4 CS no they need to work for free as well.
Now IT should be in a tech school with a on job part at least min wage or some kind of apprenticeship system.
Import tariffs?
Benefiting the interns?
Or enabling the politicians to better lining up their pockets?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The first pic in the link ( motherboard.vice.com ) showing 3 young guys sitting/sleeping besides a concrete fence is suspicious
Caption shows "Foxconn workers in Chengdu" but those 3 young guys were not in Foxconn's uniform, nor any Foxconn identification (signboard, logo) visible
The tone of the article is also suspicious - written by someone who does not have any idea how the Chinese education system (in China) functions
If a Chinese (from China) who has no idea of the American education system writes an article critical of American education system, would you believe the author?
Same principle apply. ( motherboard.vice.com ) should be ashamed for publishing a piece of garbage on its site, and Slashdot should be ashamed for not checking the facts before publishing the story
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Apple are to blame, as well as Apple's customers.
Apple are spending billions to avoid Samsung as a supplier simply because Samsung are competing successfully against their products, however Apple are doing nothing about Foxconn. There are other factories in china that do comply with forieng labour laws, there are other nations such as Thailand or the Philippines which are cheap and have laws against child labour and exploitation. Apple could afford to make the Iphone in America and still make money off of it (yes, Iphone owners are ripped off that much) yet Apple do nothing.
Well nothing beyond suing their competitors.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I think that a company's handling of contractors reflects their values. Apple (and I guess the rest of Silicon Valley) values money more than good working conditions.
Large corporations have no morals, by their very nature. They only have balance sheets. Individual people constituting them may differ, but the way system is set up, no single person is actually responsible for "pulling the trigger", so to speak, hence the end result.
Consequently, large corporations - including Apple - will do whatever it takes to beat their competitors on everything including margins, so long as it is legal (and often even beyond that, managing fines as just another risk). Appealing to ethics isn't going to do anything in this situation. At best, if you draw sufficient attention of their customers, you'll see some voluntary industry "self-auditioning" program coupled with a massive PR campaign to convince the public that all is good again, without much if any real change.
The only way to elicit change is to campaign for government regulation - laws, tariffs etc - that would apply throughout the entire industry, if not the entire economy.
Actually, that part is not dissimilar to how the system was set up in the USSR - they didn't just direct you at the place of your internship, but after you completed your studies, you'd get a similar assignment to your new workplace, as well. If you were very good, then maybe you could choose out of the few places that wanted to see you work there.
Then again, even with being assigned, people didn't jump of the roofs of their factories in the USSR.
China is not a communist country in anything but name.
Stop digging or complaining or making such a huge fuss about sweat shop, underage, underpaid, you all who have ever buy made in or assembled china products reaped the benefit (directly or indirectly ) of relatively cheaper cost product. China will still have the edge on labor cost for a while. Other third-world countries cant even come close (such as Indonesia, cambodia, burma, etc) and will have to deal with its own problems primarily business uncertainties, high-cost of running business there ( e.g. indonesian locals call it pungli).
Here in BC my son has to do 30 hours of work experience to graduate. My wife had to do the same thing 25 years ago though 10 years before that it wasn't a requirement.
This is 2 hours a week with quite a few choices so while it is unpayed labour it isn't that bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Your son gets to choose his master? I guess that is better than being sold to whoever pays the highest price to those that currently own him. There is no excuse for slave labor. They should be paying your son for his labor. Anything less is despicable and predatory.
Large corporations have no morals, by their very nature.
So true. A coporate entity is amoral and unethical and where it finds legislative restrictions to be inconvenient will put a lot of effort into seeking out a political entity agreeable to receiving something in return for repealling that legislation.
... but it isn't apple to blame
Correct. Their shareholders deserve the blame.
Do you think there are many high-volume commodity electronics manufacturers that don't use Foxconn or lesser known manufacturers who use similar practices?
So, if everyone else's doing it, ...
Isn't Apple's motto, "Think Different"?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
The suicides there were not caused by poor working conditions. Foxconn made a mistake in the design of their assembly lines.
Where true sweatshop conditions have existed, such as in the garment industry in New York, there have never been suicides. But at France Telecom, with 35 hour weeks and union negotiated wages there have been 60 suicide attempts and a reported 30 deaths. Given the difference in the size of the two work forces that is a stunningly higher rate than Foxconn.
Pictures and video in both countries show the problem is Subliminal Distraction exposure. SD, a normal feature in our physiology of sight, was discovered when it caused mental breaks for office workers forty years ago. The office cubicle was designed to block peripheral vision for a concentrating worker to deal with the vision startle reflex to stop it by 1968.
Foxconn put concentrating electronics assembly line workers too close together without 'Cubicle Level Protection,' a peripheral vision blocking scheme between them. A pair of safety glasses with wide temple arms blacked out would stop the suicides for pennies in China.
When it happened to my wife she heard voices and had severe depressive crying episodes about impossible situations she hallucinated. When a worker, or college student here, creates this problem, has enough exposure for the full mental break, begins to hallucinate a depressive, unsolvable, unbearable outcome for a local or imagined situation, a suicide is possible.
That happened to Joe Morse, Georgia Tech. His roommate sent diagrams of their dorm room to show Morse had SD exposure for the entire school year before he vanished the last day of school, flew to Miami, broke into a construction site, climbed a crane, and jumped. See my "Letters" page.
There was an incident in Ontario, Canada last year when elementary school students began to have bizarre psychosomatic symptoms. Again, pictures taken to illustrate the story showed SD circumstances.
The pictures for all three locations are linked at the top of my Home page. Read the "Letters" page, also linked there, for a simple presentation of the unrealized history of this problem.
Foxconn replied but the language barrier prevented effective communication. Apple has not responded to two letters. If they solve the suicides at Foxconn they will reveal that every computer they ever sold should have carried a Subliminal Distraction warning. The problem has been solved forty years. That's much longer than computers have existed.
L K Tucker
VisionAndPsychosis.Net
1. How many US students do UNPAID internships?? Unless you are in STEM, most of US internships for college students are not even paid.
2. STEM internships in the US don't even pay as well as these Foxconn internships as % of full time employee wages
3. These Chinese interns get room and board in additional to higher pay than a typical US STEM intern
4. The suicide rate at Foxconn's plants are BOTH BELOW China's AND US per capita suicide rates - both countries would love to have rates that low
I know, I know, no one in the US wants to be bothered with actual facts or critical thinking any more. Not when you can get your rage on by reacting without facts or thinking.
The only problem with this is that there is NOONE in the US that Apple can go to for manufacturing.
Apple was, for a long time, a die-hard "Made in the US" organization. Eventually, though, they got to the point where American Manufacturing was just completely unable to manufacture their products. And it's not just the individual plants - it's the entire manufacturing chain, from mining to final product assembly. Obama even asked Steve Jobs what Apple needed to manufacture the iPhone in the US. His reply? To paraphrase: "it can't be done."
This seems to be a good writeup:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
Weylin
67.5% Slashdot Pure I guess I need to work on that....