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

Re:Everything old is new again.

[ShanghaiBill]

Slavery? Nah. Wage slavery! It's new, you'll like it. Or else.

Except that it is not new. Since the 1950s, students in China have been required to work in factories, farms, or military service. It is not supposed to be an "internship" related to their work, but rather normal work to give them an appreciation of the proletariat/peasant/soldier. They are treated the same, and paid the same, as the other workers. Building PS4s is probably an easier assignment than 99% of the students get, so they should stop whining, and get the job done. If they don't like it, I am sure some students assigned to mosquito infested rice paddies would be happy to swap with them.

These students are going to be the future leaders, in both business and politics. It is reasonable to require them to have an appreciation for the people they will be leading.

My wife is Chinese, and during college she spent six months working in a car factory in Tianjin, installing door handles. She remembers it as a mostly positive experience.

Re:Ah I love the smell of RAW Capitalism

[TheRaven64]

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?