It's disgraceful what they pay their people! How can you live on this?

[Grateful11]

Can't back any of this up but here goes:

http://www.outsaurus.com/2011/08/01/outs...0000-jobs/

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/f...de-pledge/

[Grace62]

Grateful11 wrote:
Can't back any of this up but here goes:

http://www.outsaurus.com/2011/08/01/outs...0000-jobs/

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/05/f...de-pledge/

Thanks. "Outsaurus" is a pretty great name!
NPR was talking about the mass suicide threat at Foxconn again this morning. I've heard numbers ranging from 100 to 400 in terms of how many people were threatening to kill themselves if they didn't get pay increases. I find these stories odd and the discrepancies troubling in terms of whether to believe them or not. Tough to get reliable info out of that country anyway. I want to know that Apple, Microsoft and other companies using them for labor are over there in person inspecting very carefully. It's the least they should do for their customers and their own consciences.

[Article Accelerator]

Grace62 wrote:
[quote=Article Accelerator]
Sorry, I'm losing you there, Grace62: I thought you asked for supporting citations regarding my assertion that Foxconn workers have a significantly lower incidence of suicide than their fellow citizens. I gave them to you.

Why the diversion?

I'm not too impressed by those citations. The numbers used in each piece are all over the map. It's also absurd to expect suicide rates across cultures as different as China and the US to be comparable.
Is suicide really the issue?

I think the point here, as acknowledged in what I've read and in the links that you provided, is that worker conditions at Foxconn are deplorable. We don't need for people to kill themselves in order to see that.

So your original claim that Foxconn employees are treated "quite well" doesn't match up to any info that I'm seeing.
No, it doesn't seem to me that worker conditions at Foxconn are "deplorable." Obviously, our reactions to what we're seeing are quite different.

[Article Accelerator]

Grace62 wrote: I want to know that Apple, Microsoft and other companies using them for labor are over there in person inspecting very carefully. It's the least they should do for their customers and their own consciences.

I don't know about Foxconn's other customers, but Apple has done so.

[Grace62]

Article Accelerator wrote:


No, it doesn't seem to me that worker conditions at Foxconn are "deplorable." Obviously, our reactions to what we're seeing are quite different.

this is from one of the links you provided:

"We are not suggesting that working conditions at Foxconn are good. We've seen too much evidence that they are horrible to say that.

It's just that these suicides are not such evidence. If anything, considering these working conditions, it is remarkable the rate of suicide at Foxconn is so low.

Here's Apple's statement on the matter, via Philp Elmer DeWitt:

"We are saddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn. Apple is deeply committed to ensuring that conditions throughout our supply chain are safe and workers are treated with respect and dignity. We are in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...z1jArFJoCP