Eighth suicide of worker from Chinese iPhone factory

[Lyric]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37105960/ns/business-world_business/

Good grief. What the heck is going on there? And who is "Foxconn"? Is this an Apple contractor?

[MrCoffee]

1. Apple is good! We do not question Apple!

Their labor practices are fair and just. Until they beat/torture you over a missing prototype iphone.

[Peacetrain]

2. What is going on in China

I just posted an op on another knife attack on school children..

[Statistical]

3. Its part of their new marketing campaign "Buy an apple kill a slave".

Every one thousand iPhone comes with photo of a worker who was literally worked to death making the phone for you. It come with a certificate of authenticity signed by the almighty Jobs himself and the original death cert for the slave/worker with super cool communist seal. A guaranteed collectors item. You will be the envy of every apple cultist on the block.

Apple is so "cool", I want to get my iPhone so I can be exactly as unique as 28 million other people!

[Bok_Tukalo]

10. iMe

Conform uniquely.

[nilram]

21. iMe too!

I conform uniquely too!

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. It is not Apple, it is the whole system

The workers are forced to work 100 hour weeks, with no pay for overtime, in horrific conditions that are similar to what existed in the factory system of the US oh circa 1840.

These suicides are common, sadly and happen in factories for insert company here, who hires a second and third contractor to hire the factory to do the job. That factory is contracted to Apple today, Seagate tomorrow, Dell the day after. That's the way it works.

Why when I see made in China, or anywhere in South East Asia I cringe. The same goes for clothing factories in Central America or even Guam...

This is the ugly side of globalization, the one Friedman never speaks about. As a kid put it, we build the drives, but we don't know how to use computers.

[Lyric]

8. I agree. However, I don't think it's fair to absolve the corporations.

Apple IS the problem, along with all the other companies who look the other way or even actively support sweatshop tactics and abuse. Apple might not be the only guilty party around, but that doesn't mean that they aren't responsible for what goes on in their contracted factories. Microsoft, Apple, and all the other corporations who outsource labor in order to make products on the cheap are absolutely responsible for these situations, as well as the others that we DON'T hear about on the news. The question is, what can we do about it?

:(

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. I am not absolving the corporations

why I said this is a SYSTEMIC problem, one more Americans are fully, and blissfully unaware off.

I mean most either don't give a shit... give me my shit... or are blissfully and thankfully unaware... and that is on purpose.

But to say that it is ONE company... today it is apple, yesterday it was Hilffinger, tomorrow will be Seagate, is to miss the whole picture.

I mean people go as far as to say... I am not going to buy (insert company here) because of their labor practices, but walk into the store and buy from another company that has their goods produced in the EXACT SAME FACTORY, by the same exact slave labor, or perhaps another shift in the same conditions.

What we need to change is the system... as a whole. And that starts by not saying company A is ugly, since it is the whole corrupt system. We want it to change, we need to organize labor on a WORLD WIDE scale now.

[OhioChick]

15. You're absolutely right. n/t

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Foxconn builds the Microsoft xbox, intendo wi, motorola phones

And a shitload of other things for the tech world

All their factories have problems with labor

[SidDithers]

7. The motherboard in my Gateway computer is made by Foxconn...

you're right, they're everywhere.

Sid

[Indenturedebtor]

22. My MB was made in America by EVGA

And my computer cost half as much and is more powerful than the best gateway. There are options!

I'm sure that my house is full of slave labor crap, but there are still a few options to avoid it and still indulge our meaningless material pursuits.

[SidDithers]

23. The video card I just bought is an EVGA 9800GT...

replacing an XFX 8600GT that blew 3 capacitors. Loudest bang I'd heard in my life. Sounded like a gunshot inside the computer case.

I wish I'd never bought the Gateway. The damn thing is made with a proprietary case that mounts the MB on the wrong side.

Live and learn. I'll never make that mistake again.

Sid

[Lyric]

9. Responsible companies should stop contracting to Foxconn, then.

But they aren't going to do that unless their consumer base revolts. That's highly unlikely. Americans loooove their gadgets, and if a few brown people a world away have to die in order to get those gadgets here cheap, then by golly, we're all for it. :(

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I hate to point this out

but if it is not FOxxcon, it will be somebody else... and Americans, when informed, have revolted. Remember the clothes made in Honduras? They were hi fashion and that was exposed. I don't remember the pretty face, but she ended up apologizing... I think it was Curtis. And SOME conditions did improve.

Truth be told Americans (and other citizens of western democracies) are NOT paying the true cost of anything we buy. I gave an example. I got a pair of hiking boots three weeks ago. They were 50 bucks. True cost... after I take into account labor (who will get sick) environmental degradation, and transportation across the ocean... they are closer to 500.

The netbook I am typing from right now. It was 312 after taxes. True cost... closer to 1500... but we are not paying the real cost. And our distributors no longer make shit, they commission shit in cheap labor markets, period. And we buy them because we think we need them.

[Statistical]

17. What would a netbook true cost be $1500.

you really think even US labor is that expensive?

Labor, packaging, shipping is maybe 10% of wholesale cost of low margin device like a netbook.

The same netbook could be made in the US under EPA standard and maybe cost $400 however it would get massively outsold by the $312 slave labor version.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. EPA regulations that they don't have to follow

Gas to transport across in shipping to ports, trucks to drive to distro centers... all that.

All the infrastructure that these companies are not paying in taxes that they'd have to pay here. They also do not pay the taxes for schools and education of the work force...

Labor is 10%, that is not why they are leaving for cheaper lands. There are these external costs that these days they are not paying for.

[Statistical]

19. Transportation & Shipping costs would be higher from China than Nebraska.

There is no way a netbook (with raw components costing about $200-$250 has a true cost of $1500.

Sorry American companies sell out American jobs for much much much much less.

More like $20 - $30 difference in price. However to a bean counter at Dell who says 8 million PC a year an extra $20 margin is $160 million.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. They are NOT paying for all the externalitities

do some research on this.

They are fleeing because environmental laws are very expensive... it is not the cost of labor. That is the canard to break unions.

But these Chinese, Bangladeshi, Indian factories are NOT taking care to NOT put crap into the water ways for example. That IS expensive.

By the way, Dell no longer makes their machines. They commission them, like Apple does, like HP does. A third party does the work.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. One of the many reasons people should by Droids.

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. Is it time for a world wide minimum wage and labor laws? n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

16. Way, way past time!

I don't hold out much hope, though.

Look how hard it's been to get our one government to agree upon raising it.

[kenny blankenship]

14. She must have overdosed on all the rainbows and unicorns and sunshine and lollipops