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Foxconn Accused of Forcing InternsTo Build PS4s Or Lose School Credit
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a short article at Geek.com, based on this Chinese newspaper report (Google translation) that thousands of students have been (figuratively) press-ganged into assembling PlayStation 4 consoles, ahead of the PS4's November launch. From the article: "The students involved were offered internships at the company while studying an IT engineering course. But those that accepted aren't being assigned work that matches their course or skill set. Instead, they are being put on the production lines. The reason it is being called a forced internship is because if any of the students refuse to do the work they are assigned, six credits will be deducted from their course total. Without those six credits it's thought to be impossible to pass, meaning the students have to do the work or risk losing their qualification."
Just Saying
Slavery? Nah. Wage slavery! It's new, you'll like it. Or else.
Any executive worth his/her weight in warm spit would look at the problems Foxconn is constantly having and give a hard second look at producing equipment in the states. Tesla has revolutionized car manufacturing, so could the electronics industry.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
In the morning, is is the exploitation of the means and resources of production after all.
As opposed to paying them $5.00 a day, they're getting a better deal.
All glory to Arstotzka!
Despicable. But not a surprise.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well when it breaks, I'll know who to blame!
"Sometimes, nothin' is a cool hand."
Why does China get the job done?
- They understand their priorities when the world wants the latest gadgets
- Cheap labor
- Small kiddy fingers == smaller gadgets
- Lost of cheap labor
- Factories run at 24/7 which means a more efficient use of factory resources
- No workers's union which could jeopardize deadlines.
Currently China is a booming economy (partially because they have lots of cheap labor). Maybe The West has become too elitist in A) Gadget demands and B) Worker rights. Our demand is there, China is just for filling our wishes.
"But those that accepted aren't being assigned work that matches their course or skill set."
This is different from 90% of internships in any other nation in the world... how exactly?
In most of the companies where I have worked, the interns were judged to be incapable of direct involvement in frontline work, whether that was coding, sales, process-based QA, support or technical documentation.
I did show on a couple of occasions that they could be useful in the QA, support and documentation roles on a limited basis, and when that was not possible, I always dragged my interns off to any meetings I was attending, and talked for what felt like the whole day about what I was doing, but mostly about "why" and "how" - by the time they got out of an internship and finished their education, the chances of them using the same tools as me was minimal anyway, so the processes and reasoning were more useful anyway.
Just about every other engineer and manager used their interns as coffee boys/girls or errand runners.
I cannot say that my interns were happier or felt more fulfilled than any of the others, but they were the ones who wanted to come back a second time, and I am pretty sure they learned a lot more (although one or two of our interns actually made coffee for the first time ever when they were with us).
The whole point of this self-patting-on-back is to say that interns rarely get tasks relevant to their skillset or needs. In this case, it seems like a bit of Chinese pragmatism, using the free resources they have available to maximise profit.
Not everyone gets to be an astronaut.
The rush to the lowest common denominator. How about we cull from the top, eliminate those who want to push us into the rush to the lowest common denominator and see what happens then. Don't forget they get paid the most and do by far the least, so massive savings to be had. No Golden parachutes, no private jets and, no insane bonus schemes. At least in China they are teaching future management what it means to work the production, sounds like that lesson should be spread around some more.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
These accusations of coercion are blatantly defamatory. We are simply offering incentives, which the interns, as free and rational agents, are choosing to accept or decline. It's practically a libertarian utopia, trade among men, as equals, free from the dead hand of state power. Anyone who says otherwise is probably some sort of commie, who thinks that labor and capital negotiate from positions of unequal strength or some bullshit like that.
In the SOCIALIST economic system used in China... No "capitalism" involved there. But this is /. and facts of an issue never matter when somebody can instead make a political lie.
It's kind of a relief to know that pretty soon China's economic model will evaporate once 3d printing becomes consumerized.
At least, the part where cheap labor is mercilessly exploited in an inhuman fashion by lazy, worthless douchebags.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
China (Foxconn) commits civil rights violations and treats their workers unethically.
Wake me when one of the following happens:
1) They start paying their workers fairly
2) They start giving their workers some actual benefits
3) Their workers work "normal" hours (i.e. not 80 a week, minimum)
4) Their workers actually get some time off to spend with families
5) The workers can live somewhere off-site (though we fail there too, see the Googleplex, and Facebooks upcoming town)
6) Another Chinese company starts up that begins any of the above
Except we never had a chance to choose.
Because if we had any real and informed choice between product A whose money stays in the local economy and product B foxconn style, we'd have chosen A even if we had to fork more money.
Because it's better to fork more money and have an income and some rights, like western economies did before the 90s, than race to the bottom and have the whole economy race with you. "Sorry, for us to be competitive you have to work more hours". "Sorry, for us to be competitive you have to work for less". "Sorry, for us to be competitive you have to get lost".
Instead, in practice, we have to choose between brand A and B, both supported by the same financial system that in the 1990s decided to bring down western economy by lowering consumption using job flexibility as an excuse to take a sense of security away. No matter what economic indicators say, no sense of security means less consumption.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I am a little confused at the real point of this story this is not about rioting of abusing child workers. Students "worldwide" working are routinely treated badly in a work placement. Personally I love the idea of future designers and engineers working on a production line. I can't help but think of the vast differences between the notoriously difficult to manufacture iPhone and the designed to be assembled Moto X.
Exploiting the labor of students under the guise of "internship" learning experience has been too common for too long all over the world, not just in China. The fact that there's growing sentiment against it is a good thing that will hopefully lead to reform. For now all anyone can do is shine a bright light into these dark corners and try to let the public see the disgusting scurrying cockroaches that those who run these programs (including officials at the universities who sponsor them) really are. My own internship experience while in school was mixed. I DID have to pay for the credits earned for both internships I participated in, but also received a small monthly "stipend" that helped pay for groceries (that didn't come close to offsetting the cost per credit of the course, but it was still nice to have). One of them allowed me to develop some criitical skills that really provided me with a professional advantage in my career. The other was pretty much a "make-work" job that didn't seem to have any purpose.
oh, wait. they will just land in nets. worst internship ever.
to stop having shit made in China? We have the labour, technology, skills and parts to make it here at home.
I know why we don't (capitalism!) but damnit, we should.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
They get their qualification. It's a win for all involved.
The rush to the lowest common denominator. How about we cull from the top, eliminate those who want to push us into the rush to the lowest common denominator and see what happens then.
You haven't changed the lowest common denominator by doing that. Instead, merely by sending substantial business to the LCD we have increased the LCD. At some point, the developed world might become part of the LCD for various reasons. In that case, you'll be relatively happy that someone else is throwing you some business.
This whole "intern" experience annoys the hell out of me. I had the unfortunate pleasure of being a coffee runner / bottom b!tch while I was in school too. If you're going to intern the companies need to pay them a minimum wage or whatever the going rate is for entry level people. Yes I know this is China, but even in the US a few years ago the whole intern thing was a complete excuse to slave labor college students.
My internship was a complete joke and a waste of my time. I know a few kids who were lucky, but the majority never had any "connections" to use when they left the internship and post college. Get a real part time job locally or in my case work at the on campus IT department which coincidentally helped me land my real first job with a salary and benefits.
Onto the topic at hand, when I buy products made in a third world country, I know for a fact somewhere along the line little starving children made it for pennies so I can buy it at a 300% markup. That's the whole point of globalization, to exploit a lesser countries cheaper labor and resources so we can upcharge local americans and pocket the markup. I don't understand the outrage people have. You're knowingly buying a product made from a country that doesn't care about its environment and people. That is why it is super cheap!
There is a reason there aren't any "free trade Xboxes" or "100% Fair Pay iPhones". If you don't like third world countries abusing their people and environment for your shiny new toy then don't buy it and live like it is 1994 without any real technology or keep using tech that was built from fabrication plants that were in the US.
Three Cheers for the Unregulated, Free Market...... hip hip .... (*WHIP*) Get back to work!!!
China is socialist and not capitalist? Have you been asleep for the last few decades? Or do you also believe that the Democratic Republic of North Korea is actually democratic, and that the United States of America is actually united?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's not like we have similar schemes in the USA. Go into Legal, Entertainment, or Teaching and they all require long UNPAID internships doing work vaguely related to their field. Medical internships vary... Some are paid, some are not... It's really Manufacturing and Engineering internships in the USA that are Unique for almost always being paid in addition to college credit. Many internships you pay for college credit, and you pay again for "supervision" fees... And you work a bunch of free hours.
Elitist in Worker rights? If you are advocating moving the cheap labor (with all the adverse parts) to "The West", you should stick with China while you can.
Reality is China won't be forever the cheap labour house, and they too will get the Worker rights they sorely miss.
Sooner we get this, sooner the labour comes back to where the consumers are. After all what would be the purpose to use labour from China and produce something to "The West" -- when we all have same rights?
Foxconn is offering internships that provide six credits. If you fail to perform the requirements of the internship you do not get the credits!
I don't know of any company where the intern gets to dictate or choose what they want or feel like doing. The intern does what they are told or they can leave.
This whole story is bullshit! It is starting to look like Chinese students are developing the same sense of entitlement that U.S. students have. That's the end of your cheap electronics, bitches.
- Small kiddy fingers == smaller gadgets
When my uncle was 5 years old, his father came to school and took him home so that he could help a young sow giving birth. Small hands. Nothing new.
But how can this be tied back to Apple? Isn't everything bad that Foxconn does Apple's fault? I'm sure Apple is responsible for this somehow if we dig hard enough!
I agreed to be a "web intern" for the local newspaper one semester. I thought I'd be helping to design layouts or code bits. No, it turned out all I did was copy news stories from Quark and paste them into HTML, and modify/crop the newsprint images for the web. It was tedious, it was boring, and all I learned was that there really REALLY needed to be a pure HTML export feature in Quark and there wasn't one. It sucked.
But hey, I got free web experience and a line on my resume, right?
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
While true, I read that as different. Do not buy launch PS4's. Wait 6 months for the crap ones to work their way out of the chain.
Forced labor = shody work.
Unless people are willing to boycott Sony and not buy a PS4 over this kind of thing, they have no incentive to stop.
Why boycott Sony? When you can boycott Foxconn products like the iPhone and Xbox. Sony have their own manufacturing plants. Where do you think the UK made rasberry Pi is made? Sony's Pencoed factory. I suspect that Foxconn will not be making the PS4 long term, but have used Foxconn to deal with its initial demand, their are very few companies who could have taken on this contract.
Cheap labor will just shift to another poor country, there is still enough of them to choose from. Next up: Made in Africa.
Except Wal Mart has more or less proved that to be untrue.
See, since everyone's job has been eliminated or off-shored, most people don't have the luxury of buying ethical. They just need to buy cheap to stretch what little money they have.
I fear this race to the bottom is far from over.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Sony is not "just the customer" here. First, they know that Foxconn regularly utilizes inhuman practices. Second, Foxconn ain't doing this with everyone. Sony is leaning on them hard.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's quite a few people that are considered essential to national security (DHS, CBP, etc) that are still working right now, but with no paychecks coming in (presumably they will get back pay). I joked to a friend that having a job but no paycheck is called an internship. So maybe Foxconn is just taking a queue from the US only using students instead of essential employees.
We are on both sides (in my case my side is New York, their side is China) essentially wage slaves. I had a conversation recently, with food prices through the roof, at least we can balance the expense by having cheap technology here in the US. It is so sick of a world, I took today off from work, I had no choice I couldn't move my body, it felt like I just got home, and now it was time to go back to work. So I called in sick. An unfortunate burden on my co-workers, but I am getting to the point of complete breakdown of my body and mind. The stress for a 60 hour week, plus a 4 hour per day commute into the pit of hell in Manhattan does not compare to the hellish insanity the poor Chinese people have to go through. I followed the plan book, I studied in school, I graduated college and even got a graduate degree. All this to make about $40k after taxes to have to spend on food, clothing, shelter and electronic gadgets. I'm 36 years old male, never had a girlfriend and I just can't take it anymore. No one at work offers prostitution services, well because it's illegal so I am left with a PS3 a porno blu-ray and a fleshlight to prevent me from snapping.
Back in the 80's I had to do a lot of mandatory, unpaid, farm work, and all the product of that work was being exported for the profit of one guy who happened to be president of the country. The students they are talking about at least got scholarships, but we got absolutely nothing. It was illegal at the time for students to be paid, so the work was labelled as "voluntary". We did get something though: punishment in case we did not show enough enthusiasm for this form of slavery.
And there are no skills to learn from manually harvesting potatoes.
1) Go to work dressed like this:
http://starckmarcandthefarc.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/china_art_1.jpg
2) Hand out these to the other factory workers, and recite loudly from it during lunch breaks:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_Tse-Tung_bilingual.JPG
3) Repeat 1 and 2 until reassigned to IT work, or until fellow workers trash supervisors office for counterrevolutinary activity
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
This has been how it's done in China for all of recent history. It's not going to change and there are a lot worse "internships" than assembling consoles in a factory. They assign kids to jobs ranging from the worst job imaginable to the best, it's just how things are done there.
Culture differences make things appear more "right" or "wrong" depending on where you live. There are a LOT of worse things to worry about China (or any nation) than their internship practices
Hold on for a second here, people. Let's remember for just one second... These students... they chose (ok - an assumption on my part - they presumably chose) to intern at Foxconn. FOXCONN. Putting physical devices together is what they DO. That's their entire POINT in the universe. What are these kids thinking, that they'd be working on advanced logistics and supply chain management right out of the gate? There are two kinds of jobs in a contract manufacturer. Ones you can train for over a week, and ones you can train for over a year (or more). Not a whole heck of a lot in between. On some level you gotta ask -- what did these kids expect? If you don't want to learn (by doing) some assembly, then you're really looking for an internship somewhere else.
Spotted this over in the Ars sidebar:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/10/foxconn-admits-to-pushing-interns-into-overtime-to-build-ps4-parts/
but they should be paid not working for free It's one thing to do work like that but for free?
Why does China get the job done?
- They understand their priorities when the world wants the latest gadgets
- Cheap labor
- Small kiddy fingers == smaller gadgets
- Lost of cheap labor
- Factories run at 24/7 which means a more efficient use of factory resources
- No workers's union which could jeopardize deadlines.
Currently China is a booming economy (partially because they have lots of cheap labor). Maybe The West has become too elitist in A) Gadget demands and B) Worker rights. Our demand is there, China is just for filling our wishes.
Actually, there is a worker's union. China is a Communist country. Under Communism, the union is the Party, which represents and benevolently guides everything for the benefit of all the workers.
And America is a Democracy, where the will of the people is reflected in their elected representatives without respect to who has the most money and/or can be the most annoying.
It's kind of a relief to know that pretty soon China's economic model will evaporate once 3d printing becomes consumerized.
At least, the part where cheap labor is mercilessly exploited in an inhuman fashion by lazy, worthless douchebags.
I can't tell if you are being facetious or not. While tech advances can make things cheaper in certain markets, it's unlikely it will be cheaper than laborers in under developed countries. Robotic assembly lines are cheaper in the American manufacturing market, it's still not as cheap as human laborers in countries such as China. 3D printing can't print using metal, computer chips, glass, etc. So it will be decades (at least) until electronics can be "printed". It's also unlikely that mass manufacturing even something as simple as plastic figurines could be printed cheaper. Building unique items or prototypes will certainly be cheaper than manual assembly lines, and can be done "in house".
PLUS, China is abundant of organs for donorship. It's Win Win for everybody!
the United States of America is actually united?
Ah, that one has actually come true for the most part, after WWII. There is a certain amount of unity, especially as the expanse of Federal power continues to increase with every administration and every "war".
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Don't answer want ads from Foxconn looking for CS grads who know "Assembly."
Isn't Foxconn that factory that ONLY build Apple products? Also, only Apple does visits and enforces regulations. At least that's what I read on the internets...
China is socialist and not capitalist? Have you been asleep for the last few decades? Or do you also believe that the Democratic Republic of North Korea is actually democratic, and that the United States of America is actually united?
How is the USA not united? The states can't secede and federal law overrides their local laws.
I think your confusion might be because you think the USA is capitalist.
also under the law to for for free in the USA
The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment.
The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern.
The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff.
The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded.
The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship.
The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.
also there maybe workers compensation issues as well.
Seems one step away from the "forced" 40 hours of volunteer work you must do before you can graduate high school.
The most efficient form of labor. No employer matching 401k contributions here.
When you get down to it, there's not much difference between unpaid interns and slaves, except the slavemasters get to pretend they have ethics.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Slashdotters will attempt to find a way to blame Apple as they use the same factory.
Looks like Microsoft behind the trolling, first they went after Apple for Foxconn slave workers then Samsung got hit too and now they hit Sony with the PS4. The Sithlords of Microsoft is finally revealed.
I see no mention of how long they are being asked to work on any given day. Seems to me that understanding how this stuff gets put together might actually have some value. Are the students being rotated through out the facility?
The moderators on /. seem to be a lot less strict about quality articles these days.
The linked article is a word for word scrape of another article.
And the other article misquotes the original article it was based on to sensationalize the claims.
Nice.
Hey guys if you are a PlayStation fan you can get some free goods from this guys ;)
This is the best thing that can be found on the internet but if you are an xbox fan better not check it it is just for PlayStation fans
Psn Cards Generator
(in some fields/industries/professions/workthingies)
It's kind of a relief to know that pretty soon China's economic model will evaporate once 3d printing becomes consumerized.
No, because the Chinese manufacturers will leverage 3D printing as well. And at scale, it will probably result in it still being cheaper to buy than to print on your own.