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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."
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.
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
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.