38 suicide attempts among 450,000 workers would place Foxconn's suicide rate at lower than the general suicide rate across the US.
Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
31–40 of 84 posts
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do people agree to work in such conditions? Please don't be offended by my question, but my impression was that literacy is very high in China, and everyone gets basic education. Are the workers not aware of how they're being exploited? Are they happy with what they do? What's the turnover like?
A very large proportion of workers in technology factories are internal migrants. Many of them will have grown up on subsistence farms in the poorer regions of China. Like most migrant workers, they're working hard and saving money towards a planned future. They overwhelmingly prefer factories with dormitories, because it keeps their living costs down and allows them to save more money. "Exploitation" is a subjective…
Ah that makes sense. So what you're saying is that these laborers put up with the harsh working conditions in order to retire to a better life back home in their "native" province/village?
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#3338 suicide attempts among 450,000 workers would place Foxconn's suicide rate at lower than the general suicide rate across the US.
Yes, 38 per 450,000 people would be a bit lower than the current US rate.
It's very hard to compare suicide rates internationally because different countries have different definitions, and the people who do the counting are not consistent.
The US probably undercounts suicide. The age standardised rate is roughly 13 per 100,000
China definitely undercounts suicide.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
a small slice of pie is better than all of a non-existent pie because the pie relocated to another state or country
With the 3BN tax-dollar giveaway, Wisconsin will not receive any positive pie returns from Foxconn until 2043. Assuming Foxconn doesn't move on to another location in 2042. It's worth pointing out that Wisconsin is giving billions to a company where working conditions so bad that workers have been killing themselves there since 2010: "It wouldn’t be Foxconn without people dying."
> It's worth pointing out that Wisconsin is giving billions to a company where working conditions so bad that workers have been killing themselves there since 2010
Suicide is very common. Pick any large company and you'll find similar rates of death by suicide.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's simple maths. In the worst year for suicides, Foxconn had 14 deaths out of 930,000 workers. Divide one by the other and you get a remarkably low suicide rate by any standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides
From the article: "There were 18 reported suicide attempts that year alone and 14 confirmed deaths. Twenty more workers were talked down by Foxconn officials. " Then, "Foxconn CEO, Terry Gou, had large nets installed outside many of the buildings to catch falling bodies. The company hired counsellors and workers were made to sign pledges stating they would not attempt to kill themselves." "In 2012, 150 workers gather…
Nets are a useful suicide prevention measure, and I work quite hard to get them installed in UK multi-story carparks. (Without much success.)
If you can't fit nets you should consider other methods - one multi-storey carpark in England closed the whole top floor.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/suicide-preventio...
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#36A friend of mine is an investigative journalist in China - he spent a while working in a helmet foam factory and living in a dorm such as the one in the article.
He heard rumors that the Chinese mafia would pay workers to commit suicide at Foxconn in exchange for money for their family in the countryside. The mafia would then threaten suicide attempts as leverage to extort concessions from Foxconn.
Not sure if it's true (was only a rumor), but certainly got me thinking about it from another perspective.
Some of my buddy's work:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/yvwj3k/chinas-21st-centur...
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2015/0...
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
A very large proportion of workers in technology factories are internal migrants. Many of them will have grown up on subsistence farms in the poorer regions of China. Like most migrant workers, they're working hard and saving money towards a planned future. They overwhelmingly prefer factories with dormitories, because it keeps their living costs down and allows them to save more money. "Exploitation" is a subjective…
Ah that makes sense. So what you're saying is that these laborers put up with the harsh working conditions in order to retire to a better life back home in their "native" province/village?
Also, the harsh conditions in the factories are much better than the much harsher conditions they faced back home (eg: living in mud huts , starving if the harvest is slightly poor, doing heavy manual labor for >12hrs a day).
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#38One thing I always find chilling about stories like these is the description of work - specifically, how easily it can be automated. Very few people in western countries depend on jobs like these, but your average Chinese doesn't have much padding against automation taking away this type of jobs. Articles like these make me feel very lucky to have been born into a country which gives me enough opportunities to pad myself against obsolescence.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#39One thing I always find chilling about stories like these is the description of work - specifically, how easily it can be automated. Very few people in western countries depend on jobs like these, but your average Chinese doesn't have much padding against automation taking away this type of jobs. Articles like these make me feel very lucky to have been born into a country which gives me enough opportunities to pad my…
I wouldn't say very few, driving is a large portion of many breadwinners duties whether they're cab drivers or truck drivers and those jobs will very shortly in the grand scheme of things be automated out.
Tellers, and clerks are another big group of people who might be hit pretty hard by automation.
Re: Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city
#40How economically feasible is it to automate assembly? It looks like a lot of human suffering can be lessened if at least some parts of assembly are automated.
It's all perspective, just like (paid) child labor in some cultures. While west europeans and most north americans oppose child labor and slavery, in some countries and cultures it is only the 'lesser evil', compared to sex slavery/prostitution, starving to death or getting maimed to then beg for some pimp type of situation.
Is the human assembly line ideal? No. But for many workers it seems that the alternatives in the rural areas are either non-existant or pretty bad.