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."

Comments

We aren't 'forcing' anyone!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:Everything old is new again.

[SteveFoerster]

And not press-ganged, but Shanghaied.

Re:Apple must be responsible for this somehow!

[FatdogHaiku]

I have to agree. There is a finite amount of time they are forced to do that particular task and then they move on in life. It kind of messes up my business plan to stand in the parking lot selling "I was a slave at Foxconn and all I got was this stupid tee shirt" shirts to graduating interns...
"I was an indentured servant at Foxconn and all I got was this stupid tee shirt" just does not have the same humorous impact.