Foxconn Hires Top Spinners To Defend Its Image

An anonymous reader writes "Foxconn is insisting that it has done no wrong. But it has hired Burson-Marsteller to deal with the press failout from recent child labour allegations. Burson-Masteller is a PR heavy hitter called in when outfits have big image problems. It handled Tylenol poisonings, and, according to Corporate Watch, the Bhopal disaster, and Three Mile Island. It represented the private military group Blackwater after Baghdad allegations. Its clients have included the Argentinian military junta led by General Jorge Videla and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and Saudi Arabia after it was pointed out that most of the September 11 attackers were from that country."

Comments

If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[sethstorm]

Foxconn has done plenty of wrong - consulting with this(or any) PR agency only affirms it. There's only one option that should be on the table - confess the truth no matter how bad it is, correct the wrongdoings of slave labor and mistreatment of their workers, and then make sure it never happens again.

It's kind of hard to justify your actions when people catch you doing not-so-good-stuff (to say it lightly) and then catch your lies as well. That, and it's even harder to do it when people keep on catching you do it.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[philip.paradis]

Foxconn doesn't care about justifying their actions, or about being honest. Far from it, that's the entire point of hiring major league PR firms. There will be confessing of any truths, but there will be plenty of shiny happy propaganda spewed around the globe.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[philip.paradis]

s/be confessing/be no confessing/

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[SuricouRaven]

Not always. Sometimes you can confess but in such a way as to minimise the damage, and thus prevent a worse response should the information become public later on. An easy way is to make the confession during a major news event, thus ensuring next to no media coverage as more important things dominate the headlines. There's a biggie coming up in November, but I think that is too far away for Foxxcon to use, so they'd have to find something sooner.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slave labor implies these people are held against their will. That is not the case, they can quit any time. It's not Foxconn's fault those people are uneducated and can't find another job...

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[migla]

Slave labor implies these people are held against their will. That is not the case, they can quit any time. It's not Foxconn's fault those people are uneducated and can't find another job...

Not their fault, but very convenient for them.

It is wondrous system, funneling money upwards to the owners of the world by means of voluntary association of the poor in China and everyone in between.

And you can make it too. With a dream, some hard work and sticktoitiveness, you too can be a multinational megacorporation and bazillionaire.

The playingfield is not level, though, so in general, the richer you allready are, the more likely you are to make even more money in the babylon system.

If you have the nerve to be ruthless, not hesitating to trample down your fellow earthicans in the climb up, up, up the ziggurat, you'll have an edge.

Good Luck!

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not always. Sometimes you can confess but in such a way as to minimise the damage, and thus prevent a worse response should the information become public later on. An easy way is to make the confession during a major news event, thus ensuring next to no media coverage as more important things dominate the headlines. There's a biggie coming up in November, but I think that is too far away for Foxxcon to use, so they'd have to find something sooner.

that's right. They were saving the children's lives... by keeping them out of nasty homes with disease and squalor. :>

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[erroneus]

...and then close your business. You forgot that part.

Labor markets are a tricky thing. The only way to do away with such practices is to make them all stop unilaterally. Someone here on slashdot related a story about a town in the south where slavery was made illegal while all surrounding areas still permitted it. It wasn't long before competition was able to have its affect on the town and they had to permit slavery after all. Those WalMart prices are simply too irresistible.

But this is the norm all across the planet. Occupy protesters on iPhones and on and on. Even the protesters support this kind of human exploitation. Business, left unchecked, can and will ruin humanity. Regulations on the markets and exchanges have proven to be necessary for decades and even centuries. Regulations on utilities have shown to be necessary. Any time or place where there is an unlimited demand (power, fuel, food, air, water, etc) or an artificial control on an unlimited or otherwise natural supply (copyright, creativity, knowledge, information, seeds, etc) you will find business [run and directed by humans] trying to leverage those things to their most potential even and including at the cost of human lives... 10s, 100s, 1000s, 1000000s of lives... they don't care. Apple doesn't care. Consumers don't care. The few who care have to make the difference and it has to be someone's job to care so that others don't have to. That's what government is supposed to be there for.

Granted, that's not the way things are.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[DaveGod]

Foxconn has done plenty of wrong - consulting with this(or any) PR agency only affirms it.

No it doesn't. All it indicates is that Foxconn perceives advantages from improving it's public relations. Anything else you wish to take from it is merely reaching from your personal subjectivity and preconceptions.

Maybe Foxconn has done wrong and seeks to spin the story to it's advantage. Maybe.

Or maybe it's done wrong and seeks to do right - PR firms don't only offer consulting for public communications, they can help guide genuine change within a company. Often "bad guy" companies have such a corporate culture because the board have a lack of expertise and influence on how and why to be a "good guy" company, a PR firm can fill in that gap. Any year one, nay, week one marketing student

Or, maybe the media have got it wrong and Foxconn seek to get the truth out there. Perhaps Foxconn are good guys and these reports are all lies. Well OK, probably not, but it's entirely plausable Foxconn's failings and their lack of response have at least been exaggerated in the media. When was the last time you read an article or watched a news report on something you have a very high level of knowledge about, and shook your head about how completely they'd got it wrong? Maybe I should re-phrase that: can you recall the last time they got it right?

I'm not trying to argue any of the above is the case, merely outline a few of the possibilities. Slashdot generally has a healthy respect for science on issues that clearly fit within the realm of science, but it would be easy to read the submissions and comments and conclude it's readership is totally incapable of applying any of it's lessons for any other topic.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Sulphur]

I love how we just hand over all of our jobs to India and China and on top of it, we get worked up about how they're treated. It's like someone stealing your car and then getting worried about whether the bucket seats are comfortable enough for the thief.

They are simply sue conscious.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush/Rommey/Gingrich... is that you?

You are ill indeed...

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[UnknowingFool]

My take is company that does not have $SPECIALIZED_SKILLS hires outside company that is good at $SPECIALIZED_SKILLS. News at 11.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[PopeRatzo]

Sometimes you can confess but in such a way as to minimise the damage, and thus prevent a worse response should the information become public later on.

And sometimes you hire a major public relations firm and spend the money on spin instead of addressing the problem.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[wisty]

A boring, brief admissions is what PR firms usually advise, right? It ends the news cycle, because there's nothing more to dig up. Then you drip feed out some good stuff.

Good PR firms don't spin when things are bad. They take control of the news cycle, but in a really boring way.

Foxconn doesn't want PR. They don't care what you think of them, as long as you stop talking about them. And the best way to do that is to release dry boring facts.

Rebuilding their reputation will take years. Remember Nike? They ran sweatshops. It's taken them over a decade to lose that stain, despite being good employers. Foxconn doesn't need good PR now. They need to shut down the speculation-driven media cycle, but putting out boring but informative releases. They need a good PR firm when they have something positive to work with, and when people don't hate them so much, in a year or so.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Lumpy]

You can replace the name "FoxConn" with any corporations name and still be as correct.

Hell you can put in any Politicians name and still use that statement.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[El Torico]

You hit the nail squarely on its head. The only company that I can think of offhand that handled a debacle well was Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol poisonings. They pulled the product quickly and developed tamper evident bottles immediately afterward.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxconn has done plenty of wrong - consulting with this(or any) PR agency only affirms it.

The two parts of your sentence (before and after the hyphen) having no logical connection to one another. Consulting with a PR agency affirms nothing in and of itself.

One may hire a PR firm to defend against false smear tactics used by a malevolent opponent / attacker. Not saying that's the case here, but there are valid reasons for hiring PR firms that have nothing to do with being guilty of any malfeasance.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[jo42]

There's only one option that should be on the table - confess the truth no matter how bad it is, correct the wrongdoings of slave labor and mistreatment of their workers, and then make sure it never happens again.

And destroy the Chinese economy? You think Foxconn is the only Chinese manufacturer where this goes on? The whole Chinese economy is based on slave-level labor. Why do think the American manufacturing industry has been sodomized over with a stiff wire brush in the last few decades?

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Lehk228]

the problem is 'free' trade, free trade only works between equals and near equals, free trade between US, Canada, Germany, UK, etc. would be fine, including developing countries just turns into exploitation

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[ozmanjusri]

You can replace the name "FoxConn" with any corporations name and still be as correct.

Sort of.

Burson-Marsteller should be familiar to all Slashdot denizens - they've been long-term astroturfers here for both Microsoft and Facebook. Both companies have been caught using them for smear campaigns against Google.

Now it looks like Apple/FoxConn have joined the pack, I'd say the Axis is complete again.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[retroworks]

If you hire a lawyer, you've failed, if you go to a doctor, you've failed? Read NYT David Pogue's Post http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/what-cameras-inside-foxconn-found/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto#comments

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[stabiesoft]

letting your currency float helps too. China forces a low exchange which helps keep the exports up. It abuses their own citizens but I don't think that factors in to their pinky and the brain world domination plan.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the reason regulation doesn't work is for the same reasons, it's run by people, it has monopoly power and what's worse is that it's at the barrel of a gun. With a market, people can choose to not buy products or todo business with companies they don't like, for whatever reason. They don't have to work for them either. With a government that's not possible, if your government sucks, which it does in China, you get Foxconn. Regulation won't solve chinas problems. The government is corrupt, so don't except them to fix what is making them wealthy too.

A truly free country, where people can start their own companies, enter it their own contracts under their terms, can quit and work wherever and for whatever they like creates competition and forces companies to seek better labor practices. China doesn't have a free market, starting a company there is a nightmare, if you can even do it. The companies there exist at the pleasure of their government, so Foxconn is doing all of this with the full knowledge of the Chinese regulators.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[AmiMoJo]

Occupy protesters on iPhones and on and on. Even the protesters support this kind of human exploitation.

You don't seem to understand what Occupy is about. They are not saying get rid of capitalism or make everything super expensive so that wages in China can go up. They are merely saying that unchecked gambling by financial institutions and then walking away with bailouts, bonuses for failure and leaving the 99% of people who were not involved to pay for it has to stop. That has nothing to do with what this thread is about.

They don't want to give up iPhones and Starbucks, they want financial markets to stop holding the economy hostage and forcing governments to do what they want. Notice how whenever the government does do something the first thing the news reports is how the markets reacted? Markets are not a good way to judge economic policy.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[JonySuede]

Johnson & Johnson is one of the few remaining industrial capitalistic corporation.
Industrial capitalism is great is it see further than a quarter.
Financial capitalism is to be frown upon as it value short term gains and loss externalization.

Thank you Regan for starting the move from the industrial capitalism that made all of us relatively prosper,
to financial capitalism that have made the selected few ridiculously rich and put the many in a perpetual state of precariousness.

 

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple/FoxConn

And suddenly, without any evidence whatsoever, the name "Apple" has been added to the list.

Then you accuse others of being dishonest. Hmm.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[microbox]

Foxconn has done plenty of wrong - consulting with this(or any) PR agency only affirms it.

Unfortunately, PR firms do a great job at muddying the waters -- even when they are completely transparent shills. The may well be astroturf shills on this very webpage, ready to "educate" us.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[tqk]

the problem is 'free' trade, free trade only works between equals and near equals, free trade between US, Canada, Germany, UK, etc. would be fine, including developing countries just turns into exploitation

That's a silly thing to say. Exploitation knows no bounds. Ask Occupy Wall St. or Nelson Mandela or Kim Jung Un (or whatever the !@#$ his name is). All exploitation takes is one greedy, lazy jerk to convince a few other greedy, lazy jerks to band together to rob everybody else. The Europeans raised it to a fine art during the colonial period, and the US' colonialists taught them how fragile their scheme was when the "everybody else" part stands up together to say no.

If Chinese peasants want to work for pennies a day building iBaubles, I have to assume they've a reason to do so. I blame the bastards who're creating that situation (the PRC gov't and their toadies), not Apple.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[khallow]

starting a company there is a nightmare, if you can even do it.

From anecdotes I've heard, it sounds like starting a business is rather easy and many people do it every day. I gather (not from anecdote) it's harder to make it a legally recognized company. But if you couldn't do that, then China wouldn't have a competitive economy.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Gonoff]

They cannot quit because they would starve.

That is like saying that if there is no barbed wire fence and searchlights, there is no prison. Please Google "Devils Island". The prisoners there could walk off and die any time they wanted. There was nowhere they could go. They were still prisoners, not just guests or inmates. I think some slave owners worked the same way.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only way to do away with such practices is to make them all stop unilaterally."

Such practices have been stopped non-unilaterally around the turn of the previous century, in the West.
Of course that did not do away with it globally but it significantly improved things in western society. That's worth something, and not only because people such as you and me benefit from it.

So it is not true that the only way to stop it is to do something impossible like stopping it everywhere at the same time.

In other words: it -is- possible to stop it.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[symbolset]

A big part of making Foxconn unsympathetic has to do with the lack of good news escaping to the US. Some happy stories about three siblings who saved the family farm by sending back money while earning advanced degrees in their time off from the factory would do it. Hero stories make good popular press. They have to have 50,000 stories like that to draw from with a million employees. They just have to find them and invite honest press to report them - they don't have to fake them up.

More examples: migrant workers from impoverished families find success, rising to middle management - and love in grand community wedding ceremony. Safety reward program pays out $250,000 to workers for identifying risks for elimination. Wonderkid daycare facility spurs child prodigy to musical fame and fortune. Infrastructure workers diligently provide hygenic and safe living conditions that are the envy of the first world, with universal free medical care. And so on.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[symbolset]

These workers are not particularly uneducated. Well educated people go to Foxconn to find work because it pays better than what's otherwise available and it's work that can be had. The company provides onsite schools where workers can pursue degrees as well. When your factory has a half-million people in it it's a city unto itself with all of the infrastructure you would find in any modern city including education, medicine, law enforcement, emergency services, utilities and the like. Not everybody who works there assembles electronics in a factory. Some of them actually design the factory, the machines or processes in it.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[ThEATrE]

Wow.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[ozmanjusri]

Apple has been deeply involved from the start. When the complaints of children working in poor conditions at FoxConn were raised, Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) complained that Apple tipped off Foxconn that the inspectors were coming and executives assigned child workers elsewhere.

And while Apple now use Reverb for their astroturfing, they're no strangers to Burson-Marsteller either. These business relationships run deep and muddy.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[rsborg]

Burson-Marsteller should be familiar to all Slashdot denizens - they've been long-term astroturfers here for both Microsoft and Facebook. Both companies have been caught using them for smear campaigns against Google.

The current CEO of Burson-Marsteller is Mark Penn, who is also famous for heading Hillary Clinton's election campaign [1] for the Democratic presidential candidacy in 2008. Many folks blamed Penn for his mis-handling of the primary, which was seen as Clinton's to lose.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Penn#Presidential_campaign_-_2008

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Adjusted for inflation, it really hasn't.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[erroneus]

Interesting perspective you've got there. And to an extent, it's quite correct.

But what we're seeing is that 'back in the day' taking care of these problems locally worked primarily because technology did not effectively allow goods and services to be sourced from cheaper and more distant locations. But as technologies and efficiency improvements continue, we are effectively making cheaper sources more available and are removing all of the positive local effects we once had. Where once we had a thriving manufacturing base with good health and safety environments [BY LAW], we now have a lot of unemployment in those sectors where they are now being sourced more cheaply outside the range of our laws.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that they were stopped unilaterally in the sense that entire economic zones were changed at the same time; in the 19th century it wasn't practical for a business to run away from America when slavery was outlawed and set up shop someplace where they could keep on slavin'. That's no longer the case; if you only stop it in China, the business will simply threaten to relocate and China will be forced by competition to rescind the changes.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's modded interesting, but I find it insightful as well. (depressing too.)

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[rtb61]

You do not fully understand PR=B$ firms. Not only will there be shiny happy propaganda, there will be attacks and disparagement of anyone that challenges the shiny happy, people will be paid to shut up and people will be force to shut up under legal threats, already paid off media sources will carry the message and of course as a result of the internet, hundreds of marketdroids trolls with thousands of forum accounts will go to work, either promoting their message or when they lose flooding out forums that criticise Apple of Foxcon in pointless comment noise.

From the list of clients the PR=B$ channel would have be crewed by the most loathsome people imaginable for whom the truth has no meaning at all.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

And suddenly, without any evidence whatsoever, the name "Apple" has been added to the list.

Good one shillboy. Look up. Right up at the top of your browser.

What does it say in the address bar? Does it say "http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl" like it does for the rest of us?

Tosser.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[dj245]

Another one is SC Johnson (which is not the same company). One visit to their headquarters (free tours of the Frank Loyd Wright building) was all I needed to know that they are a long-term company that treats their employees very well. They are the Google of cleaning products. Unfortunately, you can't buy their stock because they are aren't listed and are family owned.

Maybe we should go back to the era of family-owned corporations, if that is possible. Companies like Standard Oil and US Steel might have been ruthlessly monopolistic (some would say evil), but they didn't trade tomorrow's profits for a profit today.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[plopez]

The problem is the perception, not the working conditions. You have manage perceptions to maintain the value of your brand. Actually changing how you do business requires effort so the best thing to do is hire professional liars to change your image.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[plopez]

Bad analogy. It's not the workers who are at fault, it's management, the owners, and the Chinese government. The workers in China are victims as much as the worker in the US, or the developing world[*], who are displaced or working for a pittance due to China's labor and trade practices.

[*] I don't regard China as a developing nation. Even before the trade doors opened they had a large infrastructure of coal mines, steel mills, refineries, car and truck plants, electrical plans, railroads, and canals. They had an infrastructure the even of countries in Africa before opening the trade doors. But that's another discussion.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[plopez]

Regulation does work. See the Glass-Steagle act. It worked for about 70 years.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[plopez]

What makes you think they have a competitive economy when they manipulate their currency? Unless we are comparing apples to apples, you can't make that statement.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[khallow]

What makes you think they have a competitive economy when they manipulate their currency? Unless we are comparing apples to apples, you can't make that statement.

We are comparing apples to apples, even if the US and the rest of the world didn't employ the same tricks. Currency manipulation isn't at all a replacement for the rule of law or social stability, both which China has to a degree.

Zimbabwe also manipulates their currency. But they have a disaster for an economy.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[ToddInSF]

The example of a corporation that hired a PR firm to fix something that wasn't their fault in ANY way is right in the article.

PR is a tool, like anything else, in and of itself it is morally neutral.

Re:If you need PR firms, you've failed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your conclusion that if you need PR firms, you've failed is utter bullsh~t. I'm not defending foxconn here, I'm attacking your premise. If a lie is simple and the truth complicated... people will spread the lie. "Al Gore claimed he invented the internet" is bullssh~t. The truth is that he enacted legislation that gave tax breaks to those who built internet infrastructure... but that is too complicated - so the BS stands. Sometimes PR firms are needed to help simplify the truth so the simple-minded public can digest it.

Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

When you need a company with a track record like that , and notice the list of clients , you know that there's substance behind all allegations and that Foxconn is simply trying to hide reality behind a veil of corporate hogwash and smokescreens .

Totally proves the allegations against Foxconn imho . In fact .. sounds like they just pleaded guilty.

Re:Track Record

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Doonesbury ran a series of storylines on a firm like that a year or so ago.

Blaming the Saudis directly for 911 is stretching things slightly: Saudi Arabia is run by religous conservatives mired in the middle ages, the people who carried out the 911 attacks considered the Saudi rulers to be hypocritical liberals. They were incandescent with rage at the Saudi rulers allowing armed infidels onto their sacred soil during the first Gulf War and its aftermath.

Re:Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

Saudi Arabia is run by religous conservatives

No, Saudi Arabia is run by clever, worldly people whose preferred tool for oppression is religious conservatism. If you believe that the Saudi Arabia is ruled by the religious, the USA by bastions of freedom and USSR was controlled selfless communists then the PR has worked on you too.

Religion is a symptom, not a cause.

Re:Track Record

[chrb]

The situation is a bit more complex than that. Saudi Arabia is run by the House of Saud, a monarchistic dictatorship, who have backed the dictators in the Arab Spring including the sending of troops and tanks to Bahrain to brutally suppress protests there. They are also accused of assassinating the leaders of their own protests. And some of the upper parts of the monarchy, and parts of Saudi Intelligence, are accused of backing terrorism, see The Kingdom and the Towers:

In support of his claim that Saudi Arabia supported terrorism, Khilewi spoke of an episode relevant to the first, 1993, attempt to bring down the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. “A Saudi citizen carrying a Saudi diplomatic passport,” he said, “gave money to Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the World Trade Center bombing,” when the al-Qaeda terrorist was in the Philippines. The Saudi relationship with Yousef, the defector claimed, “is secret and goes through Saudi intelligence.”

When Khalifa returned to Saudi Arabia, in 1995—following detention in the United States and subsequent acquittal on terrorism charges in Jordan—he was, according to C.I.A. bin Laden chief Michael Scheuer, met by a limousine and a welcome home from “a high-ranking official.” A Philippine newspaper would suggest that the official had been Prince Sultan, then a deputy prime minister and minister of defense and aviation, today the heir to the Saudi throne.

In sworn statements after 9/11, former Taliban intelligence chief Mohammed Khaksar said that in 1998 Prince Turki, chief of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Department (G.I.D.), sealed a deal under which bin Laden agreed not to attack Saudi targets. In return, Saudi Arabia would provide funds and material assistance to the Taliban, not demand bin Laden’s extradition, and not bring pressure to close down al-Qaeda training camps. Saudi businesses, meanwhile, would ensure that money also flowed directly to bin Laden.

Re:Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

So when someone hires a lawyer for legal problems, it 'totally proves their guilt'? Foxconn has a PR problem, so they hired a PR firm. It proves nothing other than they are concerned about their image.

Totally proves the allegations against Foxconn imho . In fact .. sounds like they just pleaded guilty.

I find this entire Foxconn issue a bit silly at this point. People are lining up to work there, literally storming the gates to get inside and get a job. This doesn't ring true that conditions are so horrible that people are lining up outside to get a job. The pay is better than most other factories there, yet someone on /. can throw around a few buzzwords like 'slave labor', "horrible work conditions', etc. People don't line up to partake in torture and slave labor.

To date we have an 'inside' report from the New York times, which didn't actually go inside, but rather talked to some ex-employees (which itself should raise a few eyebrows as to their accuracy), and a few 'anonymous' sources, yet everyone is doing the dog pile without a whole lot to back it up. It's obvious Foxconn does have issues to resolve, mostly around working conditions rather than safety conditions. Even the NYTimes noted this.

I can't believe how quickly /. is to react to sensationalism reporting without the evidence to back it up the buzz words. To the contrary, the actions of the folks lining up to get a job contradict most of the hearsay.

Seriously people, show a little intelligence.

Re:Track Record

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Yup, thats the mindset of the 911 crew!
With one little insignificant addition - they *cared*, really cared about this.

I could give you my opinion of the US, freedom and even the old USSR but that would take this thread waaay off topic and I really can't be bothered.

Re:Track Record

[clemdoc]

Those Burston-Marsteller guys have a great list of clients though. Maybe Foxconn just wanted their name on that illustrious list of people/achievements/events. It's not like that weren't an accomplishment. Certainly, they've managed to escape mediocrity.

Re:Track Record

[Xacid]

I honestly haven't given it much thought but what in your eyes rule each of those nations?

Re:Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

Money and petty power struggles mired in deeply seeded inertia-laden cultural institutions that have a surprising influence on the first two and can at best only be manipulated and guided rather than completely deconstructed.

Re:Track Record

[drinkypoo]

The same thing that's always truly ruled every nation of size, a morass of competing interests trying to take over so they can run everything.

The only reason we're not all just plugged in to a system ala The Matrix is that competing interests fight for the right to plug us in.

Many of us, of course, might as well be already.

Re:Track Record

[Xacid]

Dang, why are you just an AC? I like this a lot.

Re:Track Record

[Xacid]

I wonder if it's just human nature on a macro scale. Fighting like animals but using politics as a weapon and the people as fodder.

Re:Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean a track record of success? There's a thought, you need a PR firm but you don't hire the top one because of the public perception, wtf?

Quite simply this is one of the oldest and best PR firms globally. Tylenol and Three MIle Island... Half of OWS wasn't even born when these incidents took place.

Re:Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of it may be because images of nets that Foxconn had installed to catch suicidal jumpers were posted online. So there's clearly a problem.

Re:Track Record

[superwiz]

inertia-laden cultural institutions

Why do you insist on using a euphemism (which barely euphemises, btw) instead of just saying "religion?"

Re:Track Record

[superwiz]

Cornell University closes a certain bridge during the finals. Does that mean that the amount of pressure that the students feel to perform in that university is a problem? In high-pressure situations, some human beings snap. Most human beings, however, perform better. Reducing the damage that few might incur while increasing the performance of most is hardly a bad strategy.

Re:Track Record

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the fact that the suicide rate at Foxconn is less than the national average here in the U.S.?

Clearly that is a problem...

Do they cost 35 cents/hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

And does this PR agency charge 35 cents per hour and work 12 hour shifts 6 days a week?

Re:Do they cost 35 cents/hour?

[peppepz]

Spot on.

Business as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize this is going to be either ignored or modded into oblivion, but I feel compelled to point out that enlisting a PR agency is a very common procedure when facing negative publicity regardless of what the scenario is. Regardless of what your message is, it makes sense to seek aid in communicating it when the stakes are high. It's somewhat similar to demanding the presence of a lawyer when you're accused of a crime you know you're innocent of - You might think you don't really need one, but you would probably want one.

Note that I'm not defending either Foxconn or Burson-Masteller. I just don't see how this is news-worthy.

Re:Business as usual

[sethstorm]

The problem is that Foxconn had to bring in a PR firm known for whitewashing despots.

Their regular PR agency, known as the PRC's propaganda arm, just wasn't cutting it.

Re:Business as usual

[drinkypoo]

Their regular PR agency, known as the PRC's propaganda arm, just wasn't cutting it.

Let's face it, the PRC is shitty at propaganda. Nobody believes anything they say. They're pretty good at strong-arming, which is why people believe anything they want them to believe, but it's not on the strength of their words, but on the strength of their strength.

I'd prefer a news report rather than an editorial

[mrmeval]

I can get the level of bias and innuendo in that editorial easily enough from the MSM with the same thin layer of 'news story'.

Why is it so many alleged news sources feel the need to try and bend their readers to their view? The MSM is dying from this disease as there are now better and more plentiful sources.

Press Failout?

[neokushan]

What's a "Press Failout"? Is that a deliberate play on "fallout" or an actual fail in itself?

was it their idea to compare apple to nike?

[gl4ss]

and umm. did they run any successful campaigns?

how did their sales pitch to foxconn go..
foxconn: so.. what previous employers you've had?
b-m: well, you remember blackwater? they're thought of as a pretty cool company now, right? and good old Ceaucescu? and of course everyone knows how forward thinking and free country Saudi Arabia is right??

(FLA is a shill organization. the article says that foxconn was tipped about about the inspections? well doh, there were fucking headlines on papers about how there was going to be inspections at foxconn before they were done.. fucking headlines! that's not a too subtle tip. and they're comparing it to a real child sneakers sewing work anyways.. how about they send over labor health and safety people from german electronics industry?)

Re:was it their idea to compare apple to nike?

[TehZorroness]

Success is a very relative word here. In cases like this, success can be a company having the PR of Blackwater-errr.... Xe. errr.... Acadami, where failure can be a mob of tens of thousands with torches and sticks and rocks.

Re:was it their idea to compare apple to nike?

[gl4ss]

well.. they handled blackwater ok I suppose as I have NFI what they're up to today and under what name, the case for the genius of carpathians not so well.

All I have to say is 'suicide nets'

[Anonymous Coward]

if anyone actually literally built those.... well... you're guilty as shit. Unfortunately they make my motherboard and everything else I love, and no one will ever do anything to stop them because we know big boys always get off on stuff like this so it's best not to even think about it, it's unfortunately a part of life. I do hope they find other jobs with better conditions though.

Re:All I have to say is 'suicide nets'

[Vaphell]

What if they built them because of westerners whining about exploited people who have suicide as the only way out, not because there was a problem per se?
Does anybody know what was the reason people commited suicide there? There are hundreds of thousands of people working there in factories, were the suicides all work related or maybe some/most were a result of broken heart or bullying in their out-of-work social circles or any other thing people commit suicides because of?
Besides, can't people simply walk away instead of killing themselves?

Re:All I have to say is 'suicide nets'

[sethstorm]

Walking away would get them in trouble with the local authorities, whether it be on an actual charge or not.

That, and they would not be able to find alternative work.

Re:All I have to say is 'suicide nets'

[toriver]

Suicide rate at Foxconn: 1.8 per million workers, suicide rate in the United States (IIRC) 3+ per million workers, maybe Americans should try and get Foxconn jobs instead... :)

Re:All I have to say is 'suicide nets'

[tqk]

Does anybody know what was the reason people commited suicide there?

Word got around that Foxconn was handing out large payments to the suicides' families as hush money. Providing for your family is a strong incentive among Orientals, and suicide doesn't have that much of a stigma there in comparison to the West.

Besides, can't people simply walk away instead of killing themselves?

The PRC tosses people in prison for tweeting against the party line.

Discussion versus action.

[philip.paradis]

How many people here are willing to forgo purchases of anything that Foxconn is involved with from a manufacturing standpoint? Regardless of all the noble bluff and bluster that will inevitably fill the comments here, my guess is that approximately zero people here will actually vote with their wallets. Yes, that includes me.

Re:Discussion versus action.

[SuricouRaven]

Foxconn isn't a well-known brand, they just make the parts that go into the well-known brands. I am sure the vast majority of people using Foxconn products have never heard of the company.

Re:Discussion versus action.

[philip.paradis]

I agree. That still doesn't change the fact that those same people will continue to buy products with Foxconn components in them, regardless of how much you tell them about the evils of Foxconn.

Re:Discussion versus action.

[Hellsbells]

I am less likely to buy a product produced by Foxconn, and awareness of these issues have tarnished a few brand names to me.

Even a 1% drop in sales for a company like Apple would result in billions of dollars in lost sales.

Re:Discussion versus action.

[drinkypoo]

What is the ethical alternative? If we're talking about an iPod you can just not have one, or you can buy used. If we're talking about a new computer, it's downright difficult to not have a PCB in there made and populated by Foxconn. And Foxconn has actually reformed their processes, doubling worker pay recently for example, so it's likely they are actually better than many or even most other manufacturers. That doesn't change the need to continue to shine a light on the subject. Foxconn can get the light off of them in only one way. They can admit everything they've done wrong, and help us to discover and eliminate wrongdoing in other companies — which they can only do without hypocrisy after attending to their own house.

To rip Foxconn's claims apart...

[sethstorm]

Anyway, Foxconn is telling us that it has strict recruitment regulations to ensure full compliance with worker age regulations and laws.

That presumes that the records are accurate and that nobody falsifies them - including the Chinese government.

"We have sufficient access to workers who are of legal age and there is no incentive for us to break our own strict policies and Chinese law on the matter. Let us be very clear, Foxconn does not employ, in any capacity, any underage workers," the spokesperson said.

When you have to make a lot of product in a short amount of time, there is huge incentive to break your policies. Never mind that Chinese law only gets enforced if you're from the wrong family or alignment of families.

"It is a clear sign that SACOM is not interested in seeing actions that bring real benefit to workers in China. As such, they do a disservice to those companies who do provide competitive wages and benefits," Foxconn said.

SACOM is interested in bringing benefit to workers in China, just that they would rather see workers have some freedom - especially if it means openly speaking out against the multinationals and government officials that only want a pliant workforce.

In a sideways swipe to SACOM, Foxconn is working with "credible outside organisations such as the Fair Labor Association" to "ensure that our over a million employees in China have a safe and positive working environment and compensation and benefits that are competitive to everyone else."

Foxconn's definition of credible is "as long as they say things we like".

Foxconn top brass Terry Gou has been quoted as saying: "Hungry people have especially clear minds".

If his definition means willing to comply just for the meager rations given, even if one sees unspeakable acts.

Terry Gou also allegedly said, speaking at a zoo in Taipei: "I have a headache how to manage one million animals."

He sure has a very low opinion of the people that work for Foxconn if that's so good of a place.

Re:To rip Foxconn's claims apart...

[symbolset]

Foxconn as a business has no motivation to use child workers. They have far more adult applicants than they can put to work and the pay is the same. If some kids got in there it was probably a corrupt HR worker trying to get a gig for his nephews or something - and they've improved the screening process, requiring good government ID. That sort of thing happens. Heck, the US military recruited and sent off to war a good many teens during WWII and prior. Every now and then a young person still gets in - though the filtering process for that has improved some too.

Re:To rip Foxconn's claims apart...

[sethstorm]

If some kids got in there it was probably a corrupt HR worker trying to get a gig for his nephews or something - and they've improved the screening process, requiring good government ID

Which, given China, is something that can easily be faked.

Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[sethstorm]

There can't be many PR companies which have had clients like the Argentinian military junta led by General Jorge Videla who helped 35,000 people to disappear. Burson-Marsteller looked after the image of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and Saudi Arabia after it was pointed out that most of the September 11 attackers were from that country.

With clients like these, Burson Marsteller might as well be a propaganda firm given how many despotic countries outside the US are on the list.

Re:Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[jalefkowit]

Countries that treat their citizens with respect and dignity generally don't need help improving their image.

Re:Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't know how they helped the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. As far as I know he got the FULL execution platoon 22 years ago. So, I'd say that's a pretty bad example.

Re:Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[jpapon]

I didn't know there was a difference between a PR firm and a "propaganda" firm.

Re:Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[nbauman]

I really don't know how they helped the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. As far as I know he got the FULL execution platoon 22 years ago. So, I'd say that's a pretty bad example.

PR firms always say they can never guarantee results, they can only provide efforts and their professional judgments.

And a monthly bill for services, describing all the wonderful efforts they made in your behalf.

Re:Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[JohnBailey]

I didn't know there was a difference between a PR firm and a "propaganda" firm.

Propaganda firms are usually government employees. And PR firm employees are usually better dressed.

But it is essentially the same old shit they shovel.

Re:Calling Burston Marsteller a PR firm is a joke

[Daimanta]

Well, on some fronts the Romanian propaganda certainly worked. The wife of the dictator of Romania, Elena Ceausescu was a woman who never finished middle school. In propaganda they basically made the world believe that she was a renowned scientist(chemical researcher) and the party even managed to get her a doctorate.

But propaganda can never withstand the shining light of truth and the image of the wife of the dicator as a brilliant scientist evaporated after the fall of communism in the eastern block.

Good Guy Putin

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be more interesting to know what kind of campaigns these companies run. The "Good Guy Vladimir Putin" campaign comes to mind: It was all over reddit and other image boards on the internet, even though Putin is far from a "Good Guy".

Most of 9/11 attackers were Saudis..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet we invaded Iraq, killed 100,000+ and our companies are in charge of their oil?

Re:Most of 9/11 attackers were Saudis..

[Killjoy_NL]

How is this relevant to this topic?

Failed? Define failed?

[coder111]

If you screwed your employees or raped the environment or society and walked away with millions or billions in profits, in what way have you failed?

Remember, corporations have no morals. They cannot have morals by definition. Their only goal and measure of success is profit. If did some bad things and hired a PR company afterwards and still profits are up, you haven't failed.

--Coder

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[sethstorm]

They lied, got caught lying, got caught trying to use a shill organization like the "Fair Labor Association", and stand to lose money trying to defend their own lies. Their own country's propaganda department is so incompetent that they could not contain it or explain it. Those billions are going to be spent on figuring out how to not fail any worse.

Unfortunately for you, I (along with many other reasonable people) don't have the idea that profitability should come at the cost of morality.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[Macthorpe]

He's not saying he doesn't have any morals. He's saying that they haven't failed at all, seeing as the only thing that they've done wrong is betray morals that they literally cannot have.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you screwed your employees or raped the environment or society and walked away with millions or billions in profits, in what way have you failed?

Remember, corporations have no morals. They cannot have morals by definition. Their only goal and measure of success is profit. If did some bad things and hired a PR company afterwards and still profits are up, you haven't failed.

--Coder

They are, however, bound to act within a social/legal framework. If profits are up but you broke some laws, then you're not a corporation, you're a criminal organisation. Yes, there are a lot of criminal organisations.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[McGiraf]

If profits are up but you broke some laws, then you have to spend more on lobbying.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Haruchai posting as AC due to previous moderation)
Does that apply only to Chinese or foreign corporations? Does corporate personhood in the US contradict that? I'm not being facetious here as I genuinely don't know but I'm concerned that corporations may have the best of both worlds, having all the rights of a person but without the obligations.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[frieko]

I'm getting tired of hearing that load on here everytime some company does somethign disgusting.

corporation 1. an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members.

Where does it say they can't have morals? A corporation has to obey its shareholders- mostly people who are just trying to save money for retirement through mutual funds and would probably be outraged if they knew they were abetting this crap.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you are the reason we even have situations like this. Working for a company doesn't make you lose your sense of humanity, of right and wrong. Heck that only matters if you had one to begin with, something it's obvious you never had, if you think that companies only exist to profit off the misfortune of others. Social responsibility used to be a thing before all you mouth breathers decided it's never your fault, it's always somebody elses.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[retchdog]

if the only obligation of these entities is toward the morals of the shareholders, and they ignore or actively shirk this obligation, isn't that pretty much the definition of amorality?

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[plopez]

If corporations are people then they can have morals. If they are not then it is the morals of the people controlling the corporations which is in question. There's no way out of responsibility at any level.

Re:Failed? Define failed?

[plopez]

Yes! That's it exactly! That's what many of the Occupy movement people are protesting over.

Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[sethstorm]

Quitting presumes that alternatives exist and that the government wouldn't find some charge to hold them up on if they quit at the wrong time.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[jpapon]

Yes, but then Capitalism is the slave-master, not Foxconn.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[sethstorm]

What China practices is not capitalism. It is simply a more multinational-friendly version of despotism.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[joebagodonuts]

People (and their ability to do work) are capital

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[UnknowingFool]

Do you actually live in China because you seem to profess much about a situation you have no clue? These people can quit. No one will hunt them down. The problem is that a competitor is likely only to have the same or worse conditions.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[michi883]

China practices a false capitalism, where all capital ultimately belongs to a despot.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that a competitor is likely only to have the same or worse conditions.

Oh. Well I guess that makes it okay then. Problem solved.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[Luckyo]

You do realise that in true capitalism, there is absolutely no caring about who controls the capital. The importance is that capital controls everything but its owner.

In this regard, China is far more capitalist then the West, where there are a lot of regulations to address the biggest flaws of capitalism.

Re:Quitting: Technically possible, not feasible.

[Johann Lau]

Capitalism IS despotism. The hierarchy in a corporation is usually very fucking clear, and perfectly totalitarian.

They could give $100 per worker instead

[Anonymous Coward]

If they spend say $25 million on PR and advertising, and have the quarter of a million workers I've seen quoted, then they could give each worker nearly $100 bonus, or the equivalent of 285 hours work.

Why not just give them the bonus instead and let the PR fix itself.

Re:They could give $100 per worker instead

[Shajenko42]

Because then they wouldn't have control over the workers.

PR is PRopaganda, duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Eddie Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud and the father of modern advertising, was a military propagandist during World War I. He was the first to apply his uncle's psychological theories to propaganda design. Working for civilian employers, he coined the term "Public Relations" as a replacement for "propaganda" because of the negative connotations of that word.

For a history of modern propaganda and its role in the development of today's consumer culture, see Adam Curtis, The Century Of The Self, available at archive.org Spoiler alert: Propaganda was the primary formative influence behind what we laughingly call 21st century civilization, and remains the dominant, if hidden, guiding hand behind popular culture.

Re:PR is PRopaganda, duh

[nbauman]

Ed Bernays, the man who got America's women addicted to cigarettes by subverting feminism in the service of his tobacco industry clients.

Why PR?

[pertinax18]

Why do you need an expensive PR firm when you already have David Pogue working for you?

Why is this an Apple story?

[kthreadd]

It's not about them.

Re:Why is this an Apple story?

[Anonymous Coward]

The most powerful baron bears the most responsibility to his subjects.

Re:Why is this an Apple story?

[drinkypoo]

Apple is reputed to be Foxconn's largest customer. It is about them.

Re:Why is this an Apple story?

[UnknowingFool]

No. Apple is their largest profile customer. Foxconn is Apple's principal manufacturer. By volume, Foxconn probably makes more stuff for Dell. And Foxconn makes things for practically everyone.

Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxconn has done plenty of wrong - consulting with this(or any) PR agency only affirms it.

From what I've been seeing in all of the electronic media and their ability to make things look much worse than they are, Foxxconn may not be as bad as they seem.

Look, they're the manufacturers for Apple. A lot of people want to give Apple a black eye and if they can't do it directly to Apple, they can find something with their suppliers and make that a huge issue. Or let's use a political candidate analogy: if he's squeaky clean, go after his associates or his spouse.

I agree that working conditions at those factories should be exposed and it is rampant in the electronics and apparel and every other off shored manufacturer.

But at the same time, I'm a little hesitant to believe everything that's being said about them - just most of it.

Re:Maybe

[madprof]

What I find most irritating is the sancitmonious attitude of some Apple users who think their choice of table/phone is superior in more than technology.

Re:Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

What I find most irritating is the attitude of Apple users who think their hardware is superior in anything other than number printed on the price tag.

Re:Maybe

[Dahamma]

Quote from the Foxconn CEO: “Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.”

So - my first thought was, "it couldn't have been that bad, I'm sure there was some confusion in the translations".

And then he LITERALLY invited the director to the Taipei Zoo to "share his experience with the audience on how to manage different animals according to their individual temperaments."

So yes, Foxconn may really be as bad as they seem.

you act like it was some kind of fluke

[decora]

mistreatment of workers is the entire purpose of outsourcing manufacturing to China in the first place. if you make Foxconn stop abusing people, you essentially put it out of business, because now the playing field is leveled so that other countries that are not brutal dictatorships will have a chance to enter manufacturing again.

the destruction of unions and the lowering of wages and the destruction of environmmental regulations was the very purposes of existence of companies like Foxconn, and their American enablers. you seem to think these people are just going to say 'oh woops sorry' and somehow reverse the last 30 years of history, including the huge profits they made for private equity firms, investment banks like Goldman Sachs, and hedge funds.

What a top spinner

[I Read Good]

might look like

Don't Blame Foxconn

[sl4shd0rk]

I'll get modded flamebait for this but it's true. Everyone I know does not give a single f-ck about upgrading for the sake of having the newest, latest, greatest whatever gadget is coming out. Apples 'record sales' are largely symptomatic of a several much bigger problems. Greed, envy, waste, and more. 37 million iphones? with sales up 128% from last year. 15.4 million ipads - also doubled from last year. Apple isnt the only offender but they are tge biggest.

* http://allthingsd.com/20120124/apples-record-iphone-and-ipad-sales-beat-expectations/

Good for Foxconn, a large successsful business

[retroworks]

How is this an eyebrow raising story? Is Tylenol somehow like Bohpol? Tylenol was a corporation which was a victim of an attack on its brand and business practice, and hired a PR firm and made changes to bottle caps which are taught as the textbook business response to a press emergency. Having been to Foxconn / Han Hai and worked with people from there, and having read the hysterical descriptions of their operations in the USA press, I think they deserve credit for A) having already identified a scaleability problem (plan to put in robot labor), B) having raised the salaries significantly within weeks of the bad press, and now C) hiring a professional western PR firm to help them in a dilemma in western PR.

I'm not excusing everything that has happened in the course of Han Hoi Precision's growth curve, but they seem to be handling the industrial revolution reform at a pace in years rather than decades. Sure some of it is reaction to criticism, but rapid response is not the same as "cover up"! Some commenters seem to have no default setting between fanboy/troll, and any story with Foxconn in a headline becomes 5-Mod v. 0-Mod debate, more like American politics than indication that anyone is in any way concerned about China's development, pollution, or unemployment balance.

Re:Good for Foxconn, a large successsful business

[UnknowingFool]

Most here only seem to see the sensationalism of certain aspects and ignore details that make the story less interesting.

Workers sometimes work 30 hours straight during a rush period for which they were paid for every hour. I've worked 36 hour shifts myself during plant startup/shutdown but since I was salaried I didn't get any extra pay.
These workers live in company dormitories because the surrounding areas have no housing for them. If the company didn't built dorms, they could not attract any workers.
Workers don't have hot running water in their dorms much like the surrounding area.
Workers don't even know their roommates which is not unlike large, densely populated cities where neighbors don't know each other especially if they don't share the same work shift.
Workers work for little pay according to US wages. For China their wages are better than normal.
There have been 20 suicides in the last two years for a work population of nearly 1 million which is well below the national average.

I don't pretend that work conditions are the best in the world. It's a minimum wage factory job and some people don't like those jobs whether they are in China or on an assembly line in the US. For the most part, Foxconn doesn't really care about their workers any more than a company should. They don't go out of their way to harm workers which some people seem to think.

Re:Good for Foxconn, a large successsful business

[retroworks]

A voluntary non-slave workforce with choices of places to work is the cure for most workplace ills. For better or worse, Foxconn is a place that people can quit from, and many people do, it's high turnover. For now, Foxconn is better than the textile mills in the area, so it's not a management emergency yet. But they appear to be responding to these complaints, and responding to them professionally to constructive criticism. http://bit.ly/x5VT83 Personally I like the melting-pot story... when Cantonese and Mandarin and Hong Kong and Taiwanese people find themselves not defined by their language or culture but by the positions (management, labor, services, etc.), creating wealth and resolving problems, it's been a good thing.

Re:Good for Foxconn, a large successsful business

[MindlessAutomata]

This kind of nonsense is a part of a very pervasive ideology within much of the left that is hysterically conspiratorial in its view of "the corporations" (which itself is just a buzzword for all business except mom-and-pops) and where the government needs to step in and micromanage every aspect of economic life. Many believe it; many also don't and use this as propaganda as they're fully aware of what you mentioned above. Their concern isn't truth, betterment of the workers, or anything like that--it's simply to win their ideological battles.

Of course, saying this is going to make them assume I'm some suit-wearing Republican jackass, so therefore I have no credibility and what they said was right all along and, somehow, I'm just going to reinforce their viewpoint by pointing it out.

What scares me a lot about American politics is that hysterical rightwing element is quickly becoming marginalized and laughed at (as it deserves) but the hysterical left is only gaining traction and sympathy. The left is easier to play up on the "compassion" and "helping each other" element and isn't as corrupt as the right, and you can see that by support of groups like Occupy Wall Street which probably had a less coherent and cohesive "message" (if it ever had a message) than the Tea Party clowns did. It also doesn't help that the left is usually on the correct side in scientific debates and social issues.

With the new generation I expect a fully leftward swing with overreaching economic effects that will stifle growth; give it 20 years.

Re:Good for Foxconn, a large successsful business

[Anonymous Coward]

Foxconn doesn't really care about their workers any more than a company should.

Yeah, right, because profit comes before people, and corporations have nothing to do with improvement of society whatsoever.

There's a name for people like you: sociopath.

Re:Good for Foxconn, a large successsful business

[UnknowingFool]

I don't know where you work but my company doesn't give a damn about me and I don't expect them to. I do work for them; They pay me. Maybe in your world it's all lollipops and ponies and hugs where you work, but most people do not have unrealistic expectations about their companies. In decades past, the company would take care of you to the grave; these days, a job is a job.

hahaha flamebait

[drinkypoo]

Discuss apple in negative manner, receive down mod. Enjoy shillbombing. got enough karma to play this game with the iFanbois, though.

Easy to say

[G3ckoG33k]

Easy to say, when _their_ spin doctors went at it first.

Sometimes silence is interpreted as guilt, for obvious, or, and that is a f***ing big OR unfounded reasons.

Let's look at Foxconn's Wikipedia page...

[nbauman]

... and see if we can find any influence yet.

Re:Best PR - but for Folke Bernadotte

[Anonymous Coward]

Wtf?

Ok

[MemoryDragon]

If you hire a guy like this one, then you have more than a little bit of shit up your sleeves.

Re:I'd prefer a news report rather than an editori

[tqk]

Why is it so many alleged news sources feel the need to try and bend their readers to their view?

Perhaps it wasn't intended as a message to their readers, but was instead intended to blackmail Apple/Foxconn into spending more on advertising. Follow the money.

Kill HP!

[gelfling]

And all the companies that job their manufacturing to this company. Why Apple is singled out is completely beyond reason.

Repulsive Yitzhak Yezernitsky

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wtf?"

Oh, the asshole, the sole licking excuse for an intestinal disease: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzak_Shamir, is also known as Yitzhak Yezernitsky, born in Russian Belarus. That repulsive parasite is also known under the title of "7th Prime Minister of Israel", as to ad an insult to all pejorative wordings themselves.

More articles to remember, and, one which recalls a better faith of more recent Israeli governments.

  "Israel belatedly condemns U.N. negotiator's murder"
  "Israel tries to ease tensions with Sweden" (two articles), Reuters News, 15 May 1995.
  "Peres apologizes for assassination of Bernadotte,"
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte#cite_note-52

Still, Folke Bernadotte's wife died in 1984 and never lived to hear the apologies.

justice

[Anonymous Coward]

The PR firm shut down under the RICOH act for conspiring to whitewash criminal behavior. Foxconn's corporate charter revoked, by having all nations sign an agreement to enforce laws on revocation of corporate charters for gross violations. ps. we shouldnt give corporations (the org itself not the people in it) legal protections that humans get: no habeas corpus, no miranda, no right to not self incriminate, no "innocent until proven guilty", no right to trial by jury. if a court doesnt like what they are doing, shut them down and take over their assets in the interest of the people. as for the principals, full criminal trials for all those at the top of the chain of command, with sentences up to and including life in prison, or death (automatic commutation to life w/possibility of parole, as i dont believe in the death penalty being PRACTICED, or cruel/unusual punishment. it sure looks good on someones record, though. may scare people to see those words) Corporations are not people, and people should not be allowed to hide behind a corporate facade and engage in illegal activity. large corporations are LITERALLY a cancer on society, a legal fiction whose growth pattern is unlimited, ending in metastization. David Suzuki pointed out the analogy between cancer and corps.

Is this even a story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, if Foxconn contracted with Arrowhead to deliver water, would that make Arrowhead somehow complicit in Foxconn's issues with providing clean water? Come to think of it, I'm sure Arrowhead would also have other big-name clients (not necessarily Microsoft and Apple but you get the idea). So would the conclusion then be that Arrowhead is brought in to these big abusive companies to help them cover up their problems with clean drinking water?

This PR agency is being contracted to do the job that they do, which is PR. They happen to be very good, or at least very flexible. Why would you not hire them, if they were the best option available to you? If PR was your job, why would you not work for these companies, if they were compensating you well?

Or to put it this way: Which PR company could Foxconn have hired and not somehow be associated with other clients that PR company has served?

Foxconn (China in general) has problems with its labor practices. Everyone knows that. Let's stick to the issues and not pretend that everyone and everything that is associated with Foxconn in some way warrants a story. This is not one.

Corporations are Fictions. They are run by people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Their actions affect other people living in the real world.

The guy at the top is responsible.

You are being mislead
    a) by the popular but false legal fiction hocus pocus no-morality meme and
    b) because the meme seems to be true because no one goes to jail
              which is because the legal system is broken.

If you contract a murder using company letterhead , you are going to jail.

As a wise man once said:

[Picass0]

"By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising...kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I'm doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: 'There's gonna be a joke comin' up.' There's no fuckin' joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself...borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something...rid the world of your evil fuckin' presence."

Bill Hicks - 1990

No one else wanted to toke Foxconn

[plopez]

So they had to hire the only whore that would.

Cupertino's worse!

[JimtownKelly]

Though I now live very close to Shenzhen, I spent three years of my life working in Cupertino as an Apple engineer. The press can bitch and moan all it wants about Chinese working conditions, and frankly they are pretty well off compared to burning out in Cupertino. Sure, SCV employees earn more money, but pay the price in lack of sleep, destroyed relationships, and premature graying.

Re:If you need PR firms like Marst. you've failed.

[sethstorm]

Ok, then I'll clarify it for you:
If you need a PR firm that has a reputation for having despots as clients, you have failed very hard to clean up whatever it is that you had to clean up.

In this case, Foxconn not only couldn't fix their image problem, the company actively did things to further damage it.