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Foxconn Says Vocational Students Aren't Being 'Forced' To Work
jones_supa writes "Foxconn has responded to the criticism regarding Chinese internship students being forced to work for them. In a statement to Washington Post, Foxconn said that its 'short-term internship program' is in line with Chinese labor laws and that interns comprise 2.7% of its labor force in China. Schools, not Foxconn, recruit students into the programs, the company said, and the programs are supervised by local government authorities and teachers assigned to monitor the students' work. Foxconn has also set up a hotline for interns and outlined procedures that allow them to resign from the program."
Related, an anonymous reader pointed at an undercover report on working conditions at Foxconn.
Unfortunately, we're going to have to kick you out of this school and send you back to your impoverished village. You know, budget cuts and such.
Now, does anyone else here wish to resign from our completely voluntary short-term internship program? Does anyone else wish to not do their part for glorious China? Does anyone else wish to speak to the press?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
His response is the FoxConn isn't forcing anyone to work and that it complies with local Chinese law. He said nothing to rebut the criticism that the students are being forced to work. He's got his political speech down, talking about all the unrelated aspects rather than addressing the key point that students are being forced to work.
So from your response you can draw the following conclusions. The students ARE being forced to work, the people doing the forcing are the schools and local government officials, Foxconn is likely involved in pressuring or enticing these entities to do the forcing but isn't actually rounding the people up at gun point themselves.
Yea, not so nice when you take it out of the political speech.
Each new phone will contain the beating heart of a Chinese student. Get one today!
Why don't we pick on Nike's chinese sweat shops for a change. Because they're not a tech company? They do make Nike+ accessories for use with the iPod, afterall.
Come on, let's pick on Nike for a change??????
The title so brings the nostalgic memories of 80s, when the first thing you do as a freshman is join glorious rows of collective farmers for two three weeks at the border between Moscow and Tula regions.
The farm was actually set up this way. They had only managers and the role of measly workers were always performed by Moscow students.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
40 years ago the super-major purchases that an affluent family might make in China, would be a bicycle, a radio, and a desk.
Today (thanks to assembly shops like Foxconn) the standard of living has been raised so that those lucky enough to get employment at a place like Foxconn, can often buy a car, a computer, and a TV.
Every major city in China is building hundreds (and I'm not kidding, HUNDREDS, it is astonishing) of skyscrapers on its edges to accomodate rural, farm poor folks who are moving to the city to get jobs at place like Foxconn.
That doesn't mean that everything is always on the level or that Foxconn is pure at heart. Far from it, corruption is widespread and so many of the jobs are incredibly dangerous. But construction work is far and away the most dangerous work environment in China today.
>>What were they supposed to do?
Pay above-suicide wages, provide decent work environment and career path maybe?
So these interns get paid, right?
If so (even if its the entry level wage) Foxconn isn't getting free or cheap labor. Often it takes a few months to bring employees up to speed even on moderately skilled jobs. So they are probably losing some money (or at best, breaking even) on this deal.
Back when I started my engineering career at a utility, the company I started at had a training program where they would run new employees (professional and management types) through each division in the company. One or two days in meter reading, accounting and other similar departments. A few weeks in jobs more closely related to my eventual position. I even spent a few weeks working with line crews (on de-energized stuff). Best damned experience I could have gotten for the industry. Of course, they paid me the engineering entry level wage. And they didn't expect any real productivity out of me.
Interesting note about that productivity: When I went out with an underground crew, installing systems in new subdivisions (basically dragging cable through open trenches), I just put on some work clothes and jumped in. Later, the foreman told me that some engineers in the training program just sat in their cars, reading a newspaper and napping for a few weeks. Later on, it turned out that the newspaper reading engineers ended up becoming the company fuck-ups.
Same thing later on working at Boeing. We had some engineers who refused to go out into the factory and look at the systems they were involved with. Again, these turned out to be the useless screw-ups (or son-in-laws of some VP).
Its all about the enthusiasm and interest in the industry. Sure, it can be abused. But if you are not willing to do the work (and experience some of the drudgery) of the job, you probably need to seek employment elsewhere. Also, I'd think really hard about hiring any white collar professional who hasn't done some sort of physical labor in their past. Some of the best life training (even for the nerd set) is to work alongside some traditional blue collar workers who take pride in their professions. Working with line crews (both in training and as an engineer) sure puts the uber-macho attitude many engineers and IT professionals have into (hilarious) perspective.
Have gnu, will travel.
Hard day for loyal western customers that would rather um... pay more for their gadgets than exploit young workers. In the mean time we may find it useful to review the Slashdot poster rationalizations collected from recent responses to similar stories.
Apple/Foxconn worker and environmental exploitation rationalization worksheet
Check all that apply
[ ] Making iPhones in a Chinese factory is better than being a Chinese peasant
[ ] iPhones/Pads would cost too much if I had to pay my fellow citizens to make them
[ ] iPhones/Pads would cost too much given environmental regulations I vehemently insist on for myself
[ ] All the other manufacturers are doing it too
[ ] Some/Many/Most Chinese workers appreciate 70 hour weeks and breathing my aluminum dust
[ ] It's not Apple, it's Foxconn
[ ] It's not Apple, it's the Chinese government
[ ] It's just capitalism at work
[ ] It's just communism at work
[ ] Apple's disposable workers are paid better than non-Apple disposable workers
[ ] Apple's auditors didn't find any serious issues
[ ] Some day the Chinese will be too wealthy to exploit
[ ] Your Android is Foxconn too
[ ] You're an Apple hater using Apple as a scapegoat
[ ] I also work 60/80/100/120 hour weeks at my IT job
[ ] Apple designers are in the US
[ ] The US did the same thing to the British
[ ] The US had slaves once too
[ ] The US has prison labor today
[ ] It's up to the Chinese to stand up to their oppressive government
[ ] There are lines of willing workers outside Foxconn factories
[ ] If any company were to stop the exploitation, I really think it'll be Apple
[ ] Your free Linux runs on Chinese hardware too
[ ] Foxconn workers think they have it great, so it's ok!
[ ] Foxconn worker suicides are lower than Chicago's murder rate
[ ] We can't pollute the whole world!
[ ] Half of all US households have an Apple product
[ ] If we don't exploit them they'll never develop
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Pay above-suicide wages, provide decent work environment and career path maybe?
You are quite frankly talking out of your arse. Suicides at Foxconn have surely been reported widely, however if you look at the actual statistics, the suicide rate at Foxconn is about three times lower than the suicide rate in the USA, and about equal to the rate of retail employees in the USA that are _murdered_ while they are doing their job.
The USA has a high suicide rates especially among males because of the wide availability of guns - the rate of attempted suicides is not especially high, but the availability of guns means that more suicide attempts are "successful". Something similar happened at Foxconn: It turns out that jumping off a high building produces a good chance of making suicide attempts "successful". And Foxconn _took action_ against that saving the lives of some people who had problems with their girl friends, mental problems, any of hundreds of possible reasons to commit suicide. What is especially commendable is that they did this even though they must have fully known that the idiots would take whatever they did and hold it against Foxconn.
And sitting on a factory line stuffing ICs into boards is hardly "dangerous".
I wonder what the educational value of that would be, other than the important life lesson of "Be careful when signing any contract."
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
To add actual numbers: In the USA the suicide rate is 11.8 per 100,000 people per year, compared to China's overall 22.2. However, this is for all people. In Foxconn's worst year, they had 14 suicides, or 1.5 suicides per 100,000 employees. Making it extremely low compared to the national average for either China or the USA. Or about 2 per 100,000 if you restrict the death and employee counts to their worst (in terms of suicide) factory complex. As you said, this is about equal to the roughly 2 per 100,000 retail employees murdered per year for assorted reasons. At any rate, to get a fair comparison you would have to look at workplace suicide rates for factory employees in the USA, not just at the grand total. And as far as I know, there aren't really many such statistics available.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI