According to
Reuters, Foxconn will be raising worker wages an additional 10% from the original
20% raise announced last week. Foxconn spokesman, Arthur Huang, said that the 30% base wage increase takes effect immediately. Foxconn admits that it hopes to earn the respect of its workers and raise efficiency with the pay increase while offsetting rising costs on the Chinese mainland. The company's shares fell by 2% following the announcement (in a market down just 0.4%, relatively), worried perhaps that the raise would erode operating profits. All this comes as more Foxconn deaths -- now at 12 -- are being reported. Family of Yan Li, a Foxconn engineer, claims that their son died of exhaustion after working non-stop for 34-hours, then returning for another 12-hours after a 10-hour break. Police have already ruled out suicide and homicide in the case. Nevertheless, Yan Li's family is demanding 250,000 yuan (about 25 times the worker's annual base salary) in compensation. Foxconn accepts no responsibility in the matter saying it would only pay out "humanitarian terms" to the family.
posted June 2nd 2010 2:04AM
guess steve wasn't lying when he said he'd do something about this.
That lady in the pic looks like she's thinking about it pretty hard! They keep using this photo in their pics. She looks like she's gonna snap any second...
They're doing it for the 100,000 yuan suicide gift. Stop paying people and they just might stop hurling themselves off the building.
As much as some people will disagree with me, Foxconn employees have it good. One could only dream of that level of awesome at a factory in this country.
@CaryHiroyuki Tagawa
Clarification: Stop paying the families of people who kill themselves. Maybe do an investigation into the lives of these people, and see that things just MIGHT not be Foxconn's problem. They may be going through horrific times, a terrible breakup, divorce... whatever.
I think there's more to the story here.
@MoreGoogleAds .. Apple audited the company and subsidised the rise you idiot.
You know what is hilarious is all the anti-Apple haters in here ignoring the fact that Foxconn makes components for Dell, HP, ATI, Motorola, Microsoft, Sony, Amazon, Cisco. And where has been the response from all of those companies ?
@CPTMuggle
Is money really the problem here? beside 30% percent increase, if anything is an insult! considering the relatively low pay they are getting for their hard work.
It might be an awesome Willy Wonka factory stoops, but if you are an employee working 15+ hours a day, you aren't the one enjoying those perks and it's leaves no time to enjoy life or build relationships.
@Ravenus they should quit then, being unemployed gives you so many free hours in the day.
You need to compare the living standard to other people in the area, not yours. Also, the rate of death for Foxcon employees is a lot lower then in China.. I know, math is hard and things like statistics lose to fanboy cries.
@xtasi
Don't mean to state the obvious, had they the choice in such competitive labour market, would they really work there? and let alone without jobs, how do they earn a living?
@taligent don't worry, there's a protest outside computex as i type
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhpkgyGPxFo
Right, let's milk the cow while it still has some milk.
Without any disrespect for the workers' situation, this seems a bit out of hand. Out of the thousands of the companies in China with much worse conditions and wages than Foxconn, everybody turned their eyes at Foxconn to shoot it down.
Now, if Foxconn lays off some 100000 employees to compensate for the wages increase, will you still feel better about yourself?
@taligent
Apple "said" they will do something about it, and you believe them before it's even confirmed. Apple is really good at marketing.
BTW, the news has it today that Foxconn is making a profit of 4% and the increase may take 1% of it. Now comparing that to any of the company you listed, and what they do for the incident. True we should not blame Apple along - we should blame them all.
@Supply8
Seems statistics is too hard for you to understand. Any research can show you that the suicide rate of 20~25 year old workforce tends to have very low suicide rate. And consider the fact that all suicide happened in the first 4.5 month of the year, the ANNUAL suicide rate (which is used in the suicide rate research) is much higher.
@CaryHiroyuki Tagawa
That's BS. The guy worked 34 hours straight. I worked 24 hours straight twice one summer, it took me 2 years to recover.
They should have human resources monitoring the workers and preventing them from working more than 60 hours a week.
@CaryHiroyuki Tagawa
i kind of agree, although its harsh, not paying the suicide payment may just lower the rate of suicide
though, harsh if people do continue to kill themselves, but then i suppose it hints at bigger problems...
@loocas
Who else has a string of suicides on the same level?
@donv69
Yeah having to work 24 hrs +++ straight is complete BS.
In my line (advertising/design), I've worked 24/30/50 hours straight before. It's not fun and by the 30th hour, your mind is so fried you start hallucinating; and you know you're hallucination, you just can't stop it. At that point, something is hurting a lot, you just can't pinpoint what it is. You just feel something very wrong.
We know people can die from physically overworking, even in an office environment. Look at Japan where people just die at their desk after working 2-3 days straight through. Spec Ops can do that in spurts but the vast majority of people are not spec ops level and will physically break.
It's quite obvious that the problem isn't money. It's the conditions of their work that's driving them to suicide. Throwing more money at them is just going to make it worse. Money doesn't even begin to address the core of the problem here.
And I see a few comments about how they can quit. Quit and do what? Quitting doesn't solve the problem. It just transfers it to yet another factory; provided you can get another job after quitting. People forget that the choices they have over there aren't choices at all.
@taligent
Examine profit margin.
@xtasi
Exactly!
@MoreGoogleAds
Yeah, and Apple products are going to cost 30% more now. This is the price of fair labor, so don't complain when it happens.
@MoreGoogleAds So when Foxconn increases wages, they get credit. When people are killing themselves, Apple gets blamed.
Hmmm....
@buoy Yep, which has quite a resemblance with these laborers from apple. http://j.mp/apple-child-labor-phone
@donv69
I've done a 48 hour stint without hallucinating. I didn't feel that screwed up, but it was when I was much younger. Should I have died? Probably. But I didn't -- thank God. Nowadays, if I stay up for longer than 24 hours, I feel pretty brain-fried. I'm not sure if this gets worse with age, but it probably does.
However, this man likely worked himself to death so they'd be liable to pay a massive settlement to his family, and they probably will be: how could they let a man work 34 hours straight? It's pretty much on them now.
you mean to tell me our phones aren't made by people earning 100 dollars an hour?
I'm shocked
/sarcasm
@Nimer55 Yet we will complain when the prices go up, at the end of the day those costs have to be passed onto somebody
@Sean
Yeah, right? Shit, Apple's just barely getting by with the thin margins they make on these phones. You know what Steve bought his wife for Christmas last year? Saran wrap. From Big Lots. It's that bad.
I mean, look at the reports coming out, showing Apple seconds away from their death bed:
"Apple Reports Record $3.38 Billion Profit for Q1 2010 on Highest Revenue in History" (http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/25/apple-reports-record-3-38-billion-profit-for-q1-2010-on-highest-revenue-in-history/)
So watch out guys, the only possible way to pay these factory slaves, err workers, sorry Steve, more is to pass the cost right along to the consumer. Apple simply can't bear to cut any more into their already razor-thin (or should I say iPhone thin?) profits.
@sonicyoof When will you people get it through your thick heads that this isn't just an Apple problem. Foxconn employs 400,000 people at that facility alone, and they produce products for just about every major player in the tech industry. But hey, don't let me ruin your day, keep those blinders on.
@dmgabe
your right all the companies who hire foxconn should cut into there profits to raise wages for the workers. The companise sell us "aspirational" and "magical" products but these products have blood on there displays. Not a good image at all.
Also working straight for a day or even half a day without being aloud to go out with friend or to the local disco to cut some shapes is surely a life to make anyone go mad. As the workers must feel less and less human and more a cog or machine everyday assembling gadgets and mini computers. "madness is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results"
And U.S. unions think they have it rough. These people have to send wave after wave of laborers to their deaths for the survivors to gain a moderate increase in pay.
@Dante of the Inferno And what do we tell the union workers in the US to do with jobs they don't like?
@Darkroom
"Maybe tomorrow they'll let me assemble an android phone"
so the wages went from $25/week to $31.50/week? Guess if you're in China that works.
@OC Technophile
Um, they have no expenses.
Also, I'm not going to bother to explain to you Purchasing Power. You're obviously 11 years old.
@OC Technophile I wonder if it does, honestly. I think it's a different mindset, and perhaps its enough, but do you think if factory workers in the U.S. were committing suicide and getting in the news that a 30% pay bump would do the job? If they were committing suicide due to not paying bills, then it might be enough, however, I think since this is China that isn't the main issue.
Perhaps it's time you try to look into your business practices and ask your employees what they are looking for. Again, I can't imagine what their biggest gripes are, but I just venture that $ isn't on the top of the list. I'd imagine some of the following *might* be higher: distance to family, working conditions, working hours, career growth?, etc...
@Wesscoast
They also aren't allowed off campus and work every waking moment of their lives standing in front of a conveyor belt.
The problem will go away when they quit throwing money at them and give them a few hours a day to relax or go into town to socialize and be normal twenty somethings.
It's really not that complicated.
@Darkroom
i don't want to sound insensitive, but Darkroom, you sound insensitive.
only thing to really do about this is shut the plant down and increase wages and pay the employees leave while all conditions are addressed and these people should get the help they deserve!
I'm glad that something good came out of this digging into Foxconn's practice toward its employee.
Now I wish other factory not only in China but all over the world gets attention like this...
But that would be too much of a perfect world...
Spend a 100 million and give them all a month off with 2x pay... (400 000 earning 130 bucks a month..) apple could do not, and not even notice the dent in their quarterly.. Especially not the first holiday with the ipad, and new iphone..
@Nimer55 or you could spend that 100 million on helping Americans.
Foxxcon, from what ive read is a damn good factory (not including over time being considered good) compared to many other factories around that area. So why so much complain? Im sure many other factories over there have bad working conditions.
congratualations and props foxconn i applaud you atleast foxconn is actually doing something thats worth noting not the 132 dollar joke apple pulled
@Ralven
You moron, APPLE AUDITED THEM... That's how all this storm of press started! Apple's even subsidizing their wages.
What an idiot.
@Ralven .. You really are an idiot. Why don't you go and read up on Foxconn before spouting crap:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
Then ask yourself what did Amazon or Sony or Microsoft do ?
@Ralven Now to decide what to do with those additional $20 in each paycheck. And people blame Obama for the high rise in unemployment especially in the engineering sector. Companies save money by hiring smarter and cheaper engineers to develop products in other countries outside the U.S. I blame STEVO JOBS
@Ralven please please flame responsibly apple worshippers and trolls. thank you.
Now I just need to decide which 12 coworkers should die so I can get a 30% raise...
In all seriousness, why don't they just stop paying the families so they have no incentive to do it, other than the obvious of course. At least there wouldn't be so many copycats.
@engadgetcomexcludeengadget Now to decide what to do with those additional $20 in each paycheck. And people blame Obama for the high rise in unemployment especially in the engineering sector. Companies save money by hiring smarter and cheaper engineers to develop products in other countries outside the U.S. I blame STEVO JOBS
@WallEE
If it was only so simple. It's too easy to shift the blame in the eleventh hour. What they need to do, is to prevent similar events from happening - they may have genuinely tried, but still valuable life is being lost.
May the dear departed RIP, and wish their family the best through this terrible time.
@engadgetcomexcludeengadget
Hey, that sounds really humane. Yeah, don't worry about the conditions that are so bad and with such low pay that you not only consider suicide to benefit your family, but you actually GO THROUGH WITH IT. And not just you, you and ten others at the same workplace.
If this were in your country, do you think you'd still suggest merely eliminating the worker death compensation policy? I bet not, you'd say, "Hey, why are the wages so low they have to kill themselves to benefit from this job?" I'm sure this won't be popular to say, but I'm pretty sure there's a lot of racism going around here. For a lot of you there are very different standards being applied to the value of life for thee people.