As discussed on the previous stories here: FoxConn has an extremely good suicide rate compared to the rest of China! By a big margin (I recall about 60%).
This sounds very much like them trying to react to the bad press (I will actually say to the unfairly bad press) r.e. suicides at the factory.
Signing a letter promising not to commit suicide possibly has a positive effect - so I can't disagree with it in general. EDIT: the bit about being institutionalised might be a little far; offering medical care is definitely a good thing, any for of enforced sectioning is too far though.
(that's not to say conditions are good there.. I really don't know because none of these articles have gone past the sensational.. I suspect no worse than the rest of China - and so a general improvement would be good)
'the rest of China' is a bad thing to compare foxconn with, you probably should compare it with the other factories in the same town to get a baseline.
The economic situation in China has a huge variation from location to location so it may very well be that compared to the local average foxconn is either much worse or much better.
Either way, this number of suicides in a single company in an absolute sense is bad regardless, whatever the relationship to other companies or regions.
> Either way, this number of suicides in a single company in an absolute sense is bad regardless, whatever the relationship to other companies or regions.
Hmm, I'm not sure I follow the logic. Clearly any suicide rate is bad; and things should be done to combat it. But the fact is they employ 480,000 people and, so, you are going to see a larger number of suicides compared to someone who employs 48,000!
> you probably should compare it with the other factories in the same town to get a baseline.
Absolutely; can't find any information though. Which sucks.
The logic is that it is 25 work related suicides per that number of employees, I'm assuming that it is not exactly the total number of suicides for the whole company, just the ones that are directly related to the work conditions.
If someone jumps off a bridge because they got dumped by their significant other I highly doubt it would be tallied amongst these.
The other thing is that suicides are non-Poissonian -- they occur somewhat more clumpily in time than you'd expect from pure randomness. A high-profile suicide tends to inspire other borderline-suicidal people to go through with it. A high-profile rash of suicides, then, could really gain some momentum.
If suicides at the factory are getting a lot of attention then they're right to act against it even if it isn't a higher-than-usual rate.
I agree on the last point overall, but you still have to make some subjective judgment of the absolute rate. Foxconn appears to have had 9 suicide outs of 480,000 workers. Is that high, in an absolute sense? It doesn't actually seem that high to me: 1 out of every 50,000. Unless I have some sort of relative sense that that's abnormally high, it seems "really low" to me.
So that's roughly 25 people annually, I'm still not sure if that's high or not but it certainly seems worth looking in to and taking it serious. China is about 14 per 100,000 average, so you'd expect about 70 per year, if foxconn overall is 25 and there are no 'non-work related suicides' then they're better, if those 25/year are over and beyond the 'normal' suicides that's a bit more serious.
> if those 25/year are over and beyond the 'normal' suicides that's a bit more serious. if those 25/year are over and beyond the 'normal' suicides that's a bit more serious.
Some of the previous articles have been more explicit - this does refer to all suicides amongst the employee pool (i.e. not just those occurring actually at work).
Hmm, the articles today now seem to suggest that it is at the factory. Which does, possibly, cause a different slant - I'm not sure if it is just the wording or...
I can't find the article previously that indicated this was an overall rate. So you might be right.
Although it's worth considering that this "25" could be 25 of the 70 average and so the actual rate is no higher - the major problem, I guess, is that we only have the stats people want us to know...
Mixture of "stats people want us to know" and "stats you can get" I think-- in China, as in lots of countries, getting accurate statistics on home suicides is tough, because of the stigma attached to it and relative ease of reporting it as something else.
I think we're misleading ourselves to compare suicide stats and debate acceptable/normal levels. Its the wrong conversation and FoxConn is enjoining the thread with this anti-suicide contract. Possibly they think they really are trying to help and also address the bad PR.
The root of a factory worker's problems is low wages and no way out. On the other side of the value chain, the root is consumers spending their money with little understanding of how their dollars effect the lives of people on the other side of the world. The "exposes" on FoxConn are sensational and poorly written but at least we are having this conversation now as a result. FoxConn may be at the top of the curve in employee treatment compared to other factories and its still a life constricting hellhole to many/most.
Okay, so is anyone else bothered by this statement:
> Apple manufacturer Foxconn was today taking extraordinary measures [...]
Foxconn or Hon Hai makes products for many different companies and their parts end up in thousands of different products all over the world, yes they are one of the primary manufacturers for Apple products but Apple is not the only one that is having products manufactured there. I find that it is very disproportionate for a news article not to mention that other companies also do business with them thereby putting the spotlight just on Apple.
It's inaccurate in fact but accurate in spirit. Companies like Apple and Nike should not be allowed to outsource human misery, pollution, or anything else that is reprehensible.
Apple have been bragging about how green their products are, so clearly they are not above taking credit for things done by their subcontractors in their name. So it's fair to bring their name into it when asking questions about working conditions.
That being said, it's also fair to ask HP, Dell, or anyone else who employs Foxconn the exact same questions.
Ironically, Nike is now quite highly regarded for their current work conditions. They had a massive cleanup about 10 years ago. But the stain remains ...
Moral - don't underestimate how long people will hate your guts for mistreating workers.
The Taiwanese technology giant, which also boasts Dell and Hewlett-Packard among its clients...
But I agree with you. They're using Apple's high profile to make the news here, it seems. So much more than iPhones (or even Dell's) are made by Foxconn.
Still, it's hard to fault them for trying to bring attention to the situation in any way possible.
Sure, but even the Hacker News title is specifically biased towards Apple.
I understand why the media does it, and I can certainly sympathise with them wanting to get the story as much attention as possible but it just seems unfair to single out one company out of the masses just because anything mentioned about said company turns to gold, or something close to it with ad impressions.
Morally I don't think it is fair reporting, especially since most people won't read past the first two or three paragraphs, let alone read all the way to the eighth paragraph to find out that Hon Hai (Foxconn) makes products for other corporations as well, thereby painting just Apple in a bad picture.
I agree, but the point is, since school, you learn that headlines are focused to capture people attention. I'm not a journalist, but it appears to be one of the most important things in an article. (It's like advertising, you take the worst case of people's attention.)
Maybe if the HN (edit) title was as you suggested, it wouldn't make the homepage.
In a sick sort of way, Fake Steve Jobs makes the same point here: http://www.fakesteve.net/2010/05/another-foxconn-jumper-and-... ("Another Foxconn jumper and you know who's the real victim: me"). The piece really is in bad taste but does, in a satiric way, make the point that the press is using this to take shots at Apple.
Terrible article, as I've come to expect on this subject.
"The 22-year-old's monthly salary, including overtime, was only 2000 yuan ($300) -- about the same as the US price of a 32GB iPhone."
I mean -- really? Not only does the article fail to provide any sort of baseline such as simply comparing purchasing power of 2000 yuan in Hunan if not wages of comparable jobs in the area, that's the carrier-subsidized price of an iPhone, not the actual price.
Ah, like the rules of international conflicts / Geneva conventions? You can kill each other, but there needs to be order. Napalm - nay, bullets - yay, landmines - gray area. Civilians out of bounds, unless they try to help the wounded who carried weapons.
We've got to be civilised after all... Yup - we should definitely make people sign stuff like that.
Seriously though - since they've got the nets installed, soon we may have an extensive list of ways to kill yourself in the factory (without jumping out).
I take yours as a joke. But what's the point of the contract if you decide to suicide yourself? A contract isn't going to stop, it may have the counter effect as well. (This seems like an escape from some local investigations, or something like that, [edit] and I don't know how.)
I don't understand people providing numbers about rates and how they differ. If there is suicide, it means something is wrong. It's simple as that. You don't need numbers.
We are so used to providing statistics and being empirical but we need some humanity as well.
Unfortunately, these conditions seem to be the norm in China, regardless of the company or factory. Even if Apple took the nuclear option and dropped Foxconn as a manufacturer, would any rival companies (that had similar manufacturing capacity) treat their workers any better?
I do not think it is accurate. Apple is more of a low volume, high margin kind of business. Mind you, the high margin is for themselves. If at all, I guess the manufacturer may sell to Apple just above cost, just for the sake of the free publicity.
But if you look at the bottom line, I doubt Apple is a Foxconn's make or break client.
>"The atmosphere inside our workplaces is so tight and depressing that we're not allowed to speak to each other for 12 hours or you'll be reproached by your supervisors.
Even with 8000 people applying for work daily, Apple, Dell and HP could and should pressure Foxconn to improve working conditions. Imho it's not about not-killing-myself but the daily "I feel like I have an empty life and work like a machine".
Off the original topic, but (ex-) Niagara local here: the fine isn't entirely useless. Some people survive the fall, so when one is noticed, you have to mobilize a rescue team to search for a potential survivor. More importantly, I am under the impression the fine is meant to deter (and recoup the expenses on) daredevils more than suicidal people; people going over in barrels and so on.
Would it really make that much of a difference in this case? I think Apple is getting more pressure than most because they essentially are selling a luxury good, where the cost spent on the Chinese manufacturing is not that high a percentage of the total retail sales cost, so they could afford to spend more and still turn a profit.
Roof patrols were also being arranged and nets installed
around buildings to deter suicidal workers, it added.
"If they jump, they'll fall into the safety nets, so
their lives will be saved," a contractor told the channel.
And the surprising bit:
But there was no shortage of people trying to get through
the factory gates. Around 8,000 people apply to work at the
factory every day, Foxconn spokesman Liu Kun told the
state-run China Daily newspaper.
This sounds very much like them trying to react to the bad press (I will actually say to the unfairly bad press) r.e. suicides at the factory.
Signing a letter promising not to commit suicide possibly has a positive effect - so I can't disagree with it in general. EDIT: the bit about being institutionalised might be a little far; offering medical care is definitely a good thing, any for of enforced sectioning is too far though.
(that's not to say conditions are good there.. I really don't know because none of these articles have gone past the sensational.. I suspect no worse than the rest of China - and so a general improvement would be good)