Blood on your iPhone?

[Camy]

Ninth worker death at Taiwan iPhone firm Foxconn

A ninth employee has jumped to his death at Taiwanese iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, China's state media reports.

Xinhua said 21-year-old Nan Gang leapt from a four-storey factory in the early hours, soon after finishing work.

Shortly after, it emerged that the death of a worker at a Foxconn plant in Hebei province earlier this year was also a suicide.

A total of 11 Foxconn employees have tried to kill themselves this year - two have survived.

The incidents have raised concerns about worker treatment at the site.

The Associated Press quoted spokesman Arthur Huang as saying the company carried out social responsibility programmes to ensure workers' welfare.

Earlier this week, Foxconn said it was enlisting counsellors and Buddhist monks to provide emotional support for its workers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia_pacific/10137101.stm

Foxconn calls on monks and counsellors to stem suicides

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia_pacific/10122989.stm

So the question of the disparity between 'us' and 'them' rears its hideously ugly head again. But what if we want an iPhone, or can buy a pair of jeans in the local supermarket for ?4.00? And what if the people that make them are unhappy ... does it mean we're in any way culpable?

Yes, morally we must be, at the very least, partly to blame. The (naive) question is what can be done about it?

[Cole Parker]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia_pacific/10137101.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia_pacific/10122989.stm

So the question of the disparity between 'us' and 'them' rears its hideously ugly head again. But what if we want an iPhone, or can buy a pair of jeans in the local supermarket for ?4.00? And what if the people that make them are unhappy ... does it mean we're in any way culpable?

Yes, morally we must be, at the very least, partly to blame. The (naive) question is what can be done about it?

What we can do about it is to stop exporting industries to countries where mistreatment of workers is commonplace. What we can do is re-establish those industries in countries where there is a great need for jobs for middle-class workers. Yes, that will mean we pay ?5.00 instead of four for our khakis, but in the process we do something about a dreadful social ill, change the imbalance in trade, fortify our own currency, raise our tax revenue through lower unemployment and, not an unimportant consideration, sleep better at night on a pillow stuffed with feelings of moral righteousness.

C

[The Pecman]

Yeah, I think the original Foxconn suicide (actually the Han Hoi factory) happened after some "security" people beat the crap out of the employee who had accidentally lost an iPhone or iPad prototype. They still haven't revealed what the guy did -- only that he jumped off his balcony an hour after the guards left. (There's a good rundown on what happened at this Wikipedia link.)

Those people are crazy. I agree, it's despicable that Apple and every other multinational company uses factories with low-paid workers in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, and a dozen other countries. The employees endure long shifts, bad conditions, low pay, and in some cases, children are doing a lot of the labor.

60 Minutes did an expose a few years ago showing what happens with E-waste, where 8-year-old Chinese children were using soldering irons to pull off valuable components off circuit boards before the boards were hauled off to the landfill. The poor kinds were inhaling burning solder and smoke all day long, and some of them were developing severe respiratory ailments by the time they were 20.

It's a horrible situation, and I'm not convinced Apple is doing all they can to solve this. But HP, Sony, Dell, Panasonic, and every other major manufacturer are all guilty of the same thing. There isn't just blood on the iPhone; there's blood on your TV set, your DVR, your computer, your microwave oven... everything. It doesn't make it right, but it's still true to some extent.