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[Karlos]

Ok. I don't like apple a great deal, that is no secret. However, I know that a lot of people buy into their vision and the queues outside apple stores suggest many people don't share my opinion.

There was a lot of buzz over the iPad recently. Personally I don't see the point of it. To my mind, it's the least useful intersection possible between the iPhone and a notebook. There are no applications it can run that a notebook can't run faster, neither is it a phone or a convenient mobile form factor for GPS etc. Anyway, these are all technical reasons I think it's a pile of hyped up overgrown ipod touch.

So, I must have been living in a vacuum lately because somehow I missed this story. If the above criticism of the iPad doesn't put you off (and let's face it, if you like apple stuff, it won't), I am sure this will:

Courtesy of the torygraph...

A look inside the Foxconn suicide factory
As the Apple iPad launches in the UK on Friday, an investigation shared with The Daily Telegraph reveals the working conditions at the company in China which manufactures the device,

While Apple has risen to become the world’s largest technology firm, Foxconn, the maker of almost all of its devices, appears to have broken under the pressure of keeping up with new orders.
Two more workers attempted to commit suicide on Thursday by jumping from the top of dormitory buildings at its giant Longhua factory, according to sources at the site. Both survived and are currently hospitalised.

On Wednesday night, just hours after the chairman of Foxconn assured hundreds of reporters that the plant was under control, a 23-year-old man killed himself.
So far, at least 16 people have jumped from high buildings at the factory so far this year, with 12 deaths. A further 20 people were stopped by the company before they could attempt to kill themselves.
The hysteria at Longhua, where between 300,000 and 400,000 employees eat, work and sleep, has grown to such a pitch that workers have twisted Foxconn’s Chinese name so that it now sounds like: “Run to your Death”.
Terry Gou, the 59-year-old billionaire who founded the company, yesterday turned his plane around on the way to Taiwan to return to the plant. In a meeting with his senior management, Mr Gou allegedly said that he would not now leave the factory until the suicides stop.

It would seem that the people there are simply being driven mad by the stress of working conditions:

An undercover team of seven Chinese investigators infiltrated the Longhua plant one week ago and told The Daily Telegraph that the trigger for the mass suicides is “inside the factory” rather than any personal or social impetus.
“The facilities at Foxconn are fine, but the management is poor,” revealed Zhu Guangbing, who organised the investigation. “Hundreds of people work in the workshops but they are not allowed to talk to each other. If you talk, you get a black mark in your record and you get shouted at by your manager. You can also be fined.”
He said Foxconn had lost tens of thousands of workers during the financial crisis and had been stretched to the breaking point by the volume of new orders, as products such as the iPad enjoyed monumental success.
“The machines keep moving and the staff have to keep up. The workers need practice to become really efficient, and with a heavy churn of new staff, they cannot adapt. In the past three months, the factory has been losing 50,000 staff a month because workers are burning out,” he said. “Even the engineers and the training staff have had to man the production line,” he added.
“Because Foxconn has had a large number of big orders, the workers are reduced to repeating exactly the same hand movement for months on end.
The workers we have spoken to say that their hands continue to twitch at night, or that when they are walking down the street they cannot help but mimic the motion. They are never able to relax their minds,” he said.
Overtime last year was an average of 120 hours per month per worker, bring their weekly hours up to 70 hours, above the maximum level set by Apple in its guidelines to suppliers. In the wake of the suicides, the company has now reduced the time to 80 hours per month, and is now considering raising its basic wage of 900 yuan (£90) a month by between 50pc and 100pc.

I think we got too used to the idea that sweatshops were all busy making sports clothing and footballs...

To be fair to Apple, Foxconn don't just make their stuff; many hardware companies are happy to delegate their production to them.

I just thought apple, with their self-aggrandizing "cult of better" hyperbole might "think different" when it comes to sweatshop labour. I guess not.

[orb85750]

If the above is true, it is not the first such problem that apple has had. There was a story quite some time ago about the sweatshop iPod manufacturing. Purportedly, that was all sorted out and there were no more worries about sweatshops ... so they said.

[Amiga_Nut]

The difference is that most companies associated with such facilities and disgusting lack of regard for employee health in such far away places are selling items on a cut-throat margin of pennies.

But Apple are selling items with huge markups when it comes to iPhone/Pad/Pod touch. So they should ensure some of those profits are used to monitor the practices of all their partners and not tarnish their image.

[bloodline]

Bit harsh Karlos, have you done your research? The Foxconn suicide rate is actually quite a bit lower than the China average.

Not to say working conditions aren't horrible compared to what we are used to, but compared to the rest of China, it's not actually that bad...

Second, Foxconn probably made 70% of the hardware in your house right now... so lets not smear Apple with this one... I would point out that both Apple and Dell have at least put in place codes of practice for Foxconn to adhere to

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by bloodline

Bit harsh Karlos,

Do you expect anything less from me when it comes to Apple ?

have you done your research? The Foxconn suicide rate is actually quite a bit lower than the China average.

The implication in the article is that this is a recent problem in the Foxconn plant. So, comparing to the overall average in China seems a bit of a red herring. You should be comparing it to the average for Foxconn over the last X years.

Not to say working conditions aren't horrible compared to what we are used to, but compared to the rest of China, it's not actually that bad...

Well precisely. Which is why this recent spate of suicides is all the more noteworthy, no?

Second, Foxconn probably made 70% of the hardware in your house right now... so lets not smear Apple with this one...

70%, eh?

I would point out that both Apple and Dell have at least put in place codes of practice for Foxconn to adhere to

Which it seems were not being followed.

At the end of the day, Apple, having achieved veritable religion status are selling their kit at quite a price to the faithful. I am sure the profit margin is big enough that if they really wanted to they could manufacture their kit elsewhere and not take such a huge hit.

[bloodline]

It's no secret that I have a fair few Apple products (iPhone, MacBook Pro, Logic Pro), but the Apple Suicide Factory articles are sensationalist.

Forxconn employs over 500,000 people. Out of those people 10 people committed suicide this year.

The Chinese average is 14 suicides per 100,000 people... That puts the Foxconn suicide average much lower than the national average.

I would add that there have been 2 suicides at places of my work in the past 3 years* (working in organisations of no more than 1000 people)... so lets please have some perspective on this!


-Edit-* Of which I'm totally sure unrelated to my presence.

[Matt_H]

Originally Posted by bloodline

Second, Foxconn probably made 70% of the hardware in your house right now... so lets not smear Apple with this one...

Commodore used them, too. Take a look at the ports and connectors next time your Amiga is open


Check out Jon Stewart's bit on Apple from the iPhone-prototype-lost-in-bar news cycle. To summarize/paraphrase: "It wasn't supposed to be this way! You're kicking down people's doors while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes!"

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by bloodline

Forxconn employs over 500,000 people. Out of those people 10 people committed suicide this year.

The Chinese average is 14 suicides per 100,000 people... That puts the Foxconn suicide average much lower than the national average.

Forget the national average, it isn't relevant to the point being made. How many Foxconn employees suicided in the last 10 years due to work related stress and how does that figure, when averaged, compare to the present value for this year?

The suggestions in the article are that excessive demand is outstripping their production capacity which is leading to these problems.

[bloodline]

I should say that while big companies like HP, Dell, Apple etc use a big company like Foxconn which does have some degree of standards (Perhaps not as high as we would all like)... think about all the cheaper tat that is made in factories with no standards at all! These are the real problem

[Crom00]

PAr for the course with Chinese factories. As bad as the Foxconn facility is Toy factories are much worse. At least the semi conductor facilities are climate controlled. It's also harder to get workers at Toy facilities as the ipod factories pay more with better working conditions.

Look at how little foxconn they pay their worked vs.how much apple charges.. plus look at all the perks Apple give their state side employees in the states like same sex health care for couples.

Wonder how long before they revolt...

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by Matt_H

Commodore used them, too. Take a look at the ports and connectors next time your Amiga is open

For sure, they are everywhere. I was just needling Matt over his 70% figure. I think the likes of ikea are possibly responsible for a slightly larger proportion of the stuff in my place than Foxconn.

As I say, from this and other sources running the story the suggestion appears to be that these recent suicides represent a leap in the rate for Foxconn which, as has been stated above, is reputedly one of the better employers. A leap that has coincided to the company over-reaching in order to satisfy the demand from some of their clients. Or Apple specifically, so the rumour mill goes.

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Forget the national average, it isn't relevant to the point being made. How many Foxconn employees suicided in the last 10 years due to work related stress and how does that figure, when averaged, compare to the present value for this year?

I'm still recovering from a mild case of food poisoning (having a chinese girlfriend is hard on the digestive system). So excuse any fogginess in my reasoning.

But I'm pretty sure you can't ignore the national average of suicides... One would expect to find 70 employees to kill themselves at Foxconn per year, regardless of working conditions. Maybe I have missed something here, but that is a simple stat, full stop?

The suggestions in the article are that excessive demand is outstripping their production capacity which is leading to these problems.

Let's ignore what the article is hinting at and look at some actual facts. I refuse to accept a single source as definitive evidence for anything.

[bloodline]

Originally Posted by Karlos

For sure, they are everywhere. I was just needling Matt over his 70% figure. I think the likes of ikea are possibly responsible for a slightly larger proportion of the stuff in my place than Foxconn.

Err... yeah, my poisoned mind meant to say 70% of your electrical equipment has probably either been made by Foxconn or has Foxconn components in it.

As I say, from this and other sources running the story the suggestion appears to be that these recent suicides represent a leap in the rate for Foxconn which, as has been stated above, is reputedly one of the better employers. A leap that has coincided to the company over-reaching in order to satisfy the demand from some of their clients. Or Apple specifically, so the rumour mill goes.

Not sure Apple sell THAT much hardware... Despite the reality distortion field, Apple isn't number one in any hardware field that Foxconn make.

Do we have any year on year data for Foxconn suicides?

[orb85750]

The still-growing population of religious Apple followers would still buy an Apple iPad/Pod/gizmo even if they knew that humans were tortured in the manufacturing process, IMO.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by bloodline

I'm still recovering from a mild case of food poisoning (having a chinese girlfriend is hard on the digestive system). So excuse any fogginess in my reasoning.

By a strange quirk of coincidence, so am I

But I'm pretty sure you can't ignore the national average of suicides... One would expect to find 70 employees to kill themselves at Foxconn per year, regardless of working conditions. Maybe I have missed something here, but that is a simple stat, full stop?

Sure, that's what you'd expect if the national average were some target value companies aimed at (can you imagine that?), rather than being the aggregate value over a wide spectrum from the very good to the very bad. From what I gather, the current rate is higher than Foxconn's own track record. Perhaps this is not the case but the fact is that it is being regarded as something exceptional by the owner/management:

Terry Gou, the 59-year-old billionaire who founded the company, yesterday turned his plane around on the way to Taiwan to return to the plant. In a meeting with his senior management, Mr Gou allegedly said that he would not now leave the factory until the suicides stop.

Let's ignore what the article is hinting at and look at some actual facts. I refuse to accept a single source as definitive evidence for anything.

It's not just this article that is making the same hint, a quick google search and you'll find a dozen more :-/