Tech Giants Investigating Foxconn's Steps to Deal With Suicides

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

Apple Inc., Dell Inc. and other electronics companies said they are examining the response by major supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. to a wave of employee suicides that has drawn unprecedented scrutiny on the Asia manufacturing giant and highlighted the changing nature of China's manufacturing workforce.

The tech companies' investigations came as Hon Hai and its hard-charging chairman, Terry Gou, moved to contain the widening fallout from the spate of employee deaths. Nine employees at Hon Hai's giant Longhua complex in the southern city of Shenzhen have jumped to their deaths this year, most since April, with two more injured in failed attempts.
....

"These last two months, I've been afraid to answer the phone late at night or early in the morning, because we've been unable to prevent these incidents from happening," the 59-year-old Mr. Gou told reporters at the Longhua campus, a collection of tree-lined streets, numbered factory buildings and worker dormitories. He expressed "regret" over the incidents, but defended Hon Hai's response. "We need time. But we have confidence and strong determination" to address the problem, he said.

The statements Wednesday from Apple, Dell and others were the first public comment on the suicides by customers of Hon Hai, which also goes by the trade name Foxconn. The Taiwan-based company, which Mr. Gou founded in 1974, is the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer by revenue, assembling iPads and MacBooks for Apple as well as other gadgets and personal computers for brands like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Nokia Corp.


Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575267603576594936.html?mod=wsj_india_main

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There are a few listers here who get annoyed every time I link to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Here's their chance to be annoyed again.

It's an outstanding newspaper.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Foxconn opens plant to reporters after suicides

Home / News / World / Asia
Foxconn opens plant to reporters after suicides

SHENZHEN, China—The head of Foxconn bowed deeply several times and apologized Wednesday for a spate of suicides at the factory that makes Apple iPods and iPhones, promising the electronics giant will try to stop more deaths.

But the usually media-shy executive, Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou, cautioned there was only so much his company could do.

"We're a company, we are not a society," said Gou. "We have a company's abilities to do things but we don't have a society's abilities."

Foxconn on Wednesday opened up its sprawling factory complex in the southern city of Shenzhen to reporters, an unprecedented move from the normally super-secretive Taiwanese company still struggling to come to terms with the suicides of 10 young workers this year. The company has been a lightning rod for labor activists who say its working conditions cause misery for its vast work force.

The tour comes after the suicide on Tuesday of Li Hai, 19. He was the latest victim of the suicide surge, jumping to his death from a building at the world's largest contract maker of electronics, which also counts among its products Dell computers and Nokia phones.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/05/26/foxconn_opens_plant_to_reporters_after_suicides/

[Duer 157099]

2. Simple solution, really

Develop an implantable chip called the "iLive" and just implant it into their employees.

Hell, implant it into everyone for that matter.