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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."
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.
Is this a Bill Clinton program?
Close, but no cigar.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
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.
Actually, about 65% of what US consumers buy is made in the US. It is a myth that nothing is made here. It's mostly the clothing and consumer electronics and other cheap plastic shit which are so completely outsourced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/worldbusiness/20iht-wbmake.1.20332814.html
"Thirty years ago, U.S. producers made 80 percent of what the country consumed, according to the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an industry trade group. Now it is about 65 percent."
Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon. -Orson Scott Card
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.”
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."