Steve Jobs has defended conditions............

[Charlyee]

Page last updated at 9:11 GMT, Wednesday, 2 June 2010 10:11 UK

Apple boss Steve Jobs has defended conditions at a Taiwanese electronics firm that produces the firm's popular iPhone, following a spate of suicides.

"Foxconn is not a sweatshop," he told a conference in the US.

Mr Jobs said that Apple representatives were working with Foxconn to find out why 10 workers had killed themselves at a factory in Shenzhen, China.

An eleventh worker recently died at another factory in northern China.

In total, there have been 13 suicides and suicide attempts at Foxconn factories this year.

"We're all over this," said Mr Jobs at the All Things Digital conference in California.

Continue reading the main story You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools

Foxconn has said that it will give its assembly line workers a 30% pay rise.

The firm had previously said that it would offer a 20% pay increase to its Chinese workers, who earn 900 yuan (£90) per month at entry-level.

"We hope the hike in wages will help improve the living standards of the workers and allow them to have more leisure time, which is good for their health," an official of Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai precision told AFP.

Hon Hai Precision is the world's largest maker of consumer electronics, and employs 800,000 workers worldwide, mostly in China.

Foxconn makes a range of products for manufacturers including Apple, Dell and Nokia.

The deaths have shone a spotlight on working conditions at the factory, where workers - often from rural China - work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

But Mr Jobs defended the conditions.

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As some of you know I feel very strongly about this and try my best to avoid products made in sweatshops. From my personal experience, irrespective of what the PR is, these ARE sweatshops. Not all factories in China are the same way, there are many that with pressure from the buyers and consumers, follow the international labor laws very well.

The company is incorporated in Taiwan but the factories are all in China due to "cheap" labor.

[spleck]

I'm confused what your trying to say? Do you think Steve Jobs is lying/wrong about the Foxconn factory being a sweatshop?

What qualifies a factory as a sweatshop? I really don't know the details about this kind of stuff. I was under the impression that Foxconn has better pay, living conditions, and facilities than factories in China that make other products like clothing. This plant in particular has had 10 deaths among its 400,000 workers, which is much better than the US and China rates (at least 4x better). I think its easy to single out Foxconn for working conditions because of the media attention to the suicides, but I'd bet that there are much worse places that need attentions.

[Charlyee]

This plant in particular has had 10 deaths among its 400,000 workers, which is much better than the US and China rates (at least 4x better). I think its easy to single out Foxconn for working conditions because of the media attention to the suicides, but I'd bet that there are much worse places that need attentions.

The 10 deaths were due to working conditions and the workers were in their late teens and early twenties, I am curious as to what factories in US have more deaths due to working conditions?

Could you please give more details?

Thanks

[zhuwh]

I'm confused what your trying to say? Do you think Steve Jobs is lying/wrong about the Foxconn factory being a sweatshop?

What qualifies a factory as a sweatshop? I really don't know the details about this kind of stuff. I was under the impression that Foxconn has better pay, living conditions, and facilities than factories in China that make other products like clothing. This plant in particular has had 10 deaths among its 400,000 workers, which is much better than the US and China rates (at least 4x better). I think its easy to single out Foxconn for working conditions because of the media attention to the suicides, but I'd bet that there are much worse places that need attentions.

Agree with your viewpoint.confused too.Since i have heard the many times jumping from a building...

[spleck]

The 10 deaths were due to working conditions and the workers were in their late teens and early twenties, I am curious as to what factories in US have more deaths due to working conditions?

Could you please give more details?

Thanks

In the US, they just quit. The culture in China is very different, which is why the suicide rate is so much higher in general.

If I were to guess, though, I would look to the US Military for a similar situation where you could say "working conditions" caused the employee to commit suicide. Suicide rates remain high - Air Force News, news from Iraq - Air Force Times Air force lost 38 people--that would be 11.5 per 100,000, or FOUR+ times higher than the Foxconn plant in China.

[AnthroMatt]

In the US, they just quit. The culture in China is very different, which is why the suicide rate is so much higher in general.

If I were to guess, though, I would look to the US Military for a similar situation where you could say "working conditions" caused the employee to commit suicide. Suicide rates remain high - Air Force News, news from Iraq - Air Force Times Air force lost 38 people--that would be 11.5 per 100,000, or FOUR+ times higher than the Foxconn plant in China.

Yes, in the US most factory workers can just quit, so that may indeed skew the numbers. And it is entirely possible there is nothing to the story. But to bring in military suicide rates would almost seem to prove that something is wrong at the factory in China. Members of the military often witness and take part in horrible events that can have lasting damaging psychological effects. If workers in China are committing suicide, even at 25% the rate of members of the Air Force, doesn't that mean that maybe something is wrong in the factories?

[spleck]

Yes, in the US most factory workers can just quit, so that may indeed skew the numbers. And it is entirely possible there is nothing to the story. But to bring in military suicide rates would almost seem to prove that something is wrong at the factory in China. Members of the military often witness and take part in horrible events that can have lasting damaging psychological effects. If workers in China are committing suicide, even at 25% the rate of members of the Air Force, doesn't that mean that maybe something is wrong in the factories?

From what I understand, most military suicides are by personnel who don't see combat, and this article (from 2004), tends to back that up: Suicide Rate on the Rise in the U.S. Air Force - Suicide.org! I'm pretty sure that military who have issues due to deployment tend to act out at others, rather than suicide.

I'm no psychologist, but I tend to equate the fact that military and workers such as those in China feel "trapped"--they have responsibilities to their families, so they can't quit and they don't want to go back to their previous jobs (farms, etc). Foxconn had been paying heavily to the families, and some suspect that was actually contributing to the suicide rates.

Anyways, we're way off topic here. My original issue was that this thread was more a political issue/character attack than it was wireless news. My stance was that while underpaid, the employees were not facing sweatshop conditions, which was also Jobs' view.

Foxconn's current direction to replace many of those workers with robots/machinery in other places suggests they only employed many of those workers because they were willing to work at those low rates. All the media attention has actually resulted in less jobs for people, some of which may not have the skills required for other higher paying jobs. It used to be that the media exposed issues to expose the truth and in some ways help people, now its all about shock value regardless of the outcome.