One more employee from Foxconn falls off building and dies | Hacker News Reader

One more employee from Foxconn falls off building and dies

news.xinhuanet.com

34 pointsvaksel26 comments

To be fair, Foxconn employs over 300,000 workers in Shenzen. Yes, really -- they are the world's largest electronics manufacturer. To put that in perspective, that's more than two Shenzen Foxconn employees for every living MIT alumnus. Three hundred thousand. That's a lot of people.

What has made these stories news is the suicide last July of a Foxconn employee who lost a prototype iPhone. However, suicides since then have not all been further results of product security breaches. Again, it's not entirely unexpected when you're talking about three hundred thousand people in close quarters that there will be some suicide, drama, criminality and perhaps even murder within that population. It's probably doing better by many measures than most cities of that size in the region.

In 1999 the suicide rate in China was 13 per 100,000 so my suspicion is that this story has only been up-voted for mud-slinging purposes. I'm a bit disappointed to see it on the front page — it doesn't strike me as being Hacker News.

Without these 2 pieces of data from zach and you (which were not present in the article), it does look like news.

Also, the "make iPhones" note in HN submission title is a touch misleading considering Foxconn also makes pretty much everything else when it comes to electronics. I've stopped counting motherboard components I've seen with their logo on it.

Here is an article in Chinese about this incident:

http://policy.caing.com/2010-05-13/100143630.html

It says there are 400,000 people working for Foxconn in Shenzhen. 300,000 of these are unqualified workers aged about 20 years old. There is high turnover.

They work for 10 hours a day, with 1 hour for lunch and 10 minutes in the day to go to the bathroom. After the financial crisis they have been cutting staff and work pressure has increased. Managers intentionally introduce faults on production lines to see if workers spot the errors, if they do not, they are punished. They are also punished for talking to each other or dozing off.

There is a strict hierarchy, with little communication between managers and staff. Managers manage by shouting at staff, there is little respect for individuals. After 3 or 4 months working together colleagues don't even recognise each other.

After the spate of suicides management has increased psychological support programs, but a spokesman says with 420,000 staff they are unable to understand everybody's mental health issues.

What is really interesting here, is how many jumps were committed from the same roof.

Look at Bobst Library's record at NYU...so many they (finally) put up plexiglass to prevent more.

This is a baby step away from Onion level.

"In the employee's pocket was a short suicide note with the wrong date. It read 'I am so sad I decided to jump off the building. Oh and I may or may not have decided to cut myself with a knife, too. Goodbye cruel world.'

Mysteriously, the employee spelled his own name wrong in the note.

Police are still investigating if this was a suicide."

If working conditions have improved since the suicides started making the news, other employees may have manufactured another suicide hoping that conditions will improve further.

A few weeks ago I heard a live presentation by IT workers in Mexiko building smart phones, and what they told was not really nice. Employers paying sublegal salaries, harassment etc. Consumers should care about that but they (I also - mostly because of missing information) don't. It's not helping that an electronic product has hundred of different components in it, and all end manufacturers share the same few manufacturers. The current "solution" is to advise cities, governments and companies about fair(er) products so that these can put more pressure on the end vendor to control the manufacturing work conditions. We've still a long way to go.

they need to fix that roof

sure looks like it:

"It is the ninth fall by Foxconn employees in five months."

Add to that

A blood-stained dagger was found with Liang and his body sustained several knife cuts.

So he stabbed himself and then threw his body off the ledge?

They didn't say what kind of cuts, and the "dagger" might be an awkward translation. Maybe they just meant he cut his wrists.

Unlikely, but not impossible.

That would cut into iPhone profit margins.

It wouldn't?

Reading your post cut into the profit margins of people reading it. Didn't it?

Sure.

"Foxconn felt sorry over the death," he said.

Is it just me or is there very little emotion translated over with this quote?

There are many ways to say sorry in Chinese - some of which imply one's own culpability/guilt, others do not. I'm not sure there's a good translation for whatever statement Foxconn expressed.

It's not just you, but I heavily suspect translation and/or social norms are at play.

This confuses me. What are they supposed to be saying? As a non-native speaker, I have no idea what you mean.

Do you criticize the writing of the article (ie it not being colorful enough)?

In English, that would be the wrong way to express one's sorrow over the death. but it's a translation, so our cultural details are irrelevant.

What would be the right way to say it in English?

For the situation at hand, probably something like "It is with regret that we learn about the passing of Mr. Liang. We will keep his family and associates in our thoughts." Add "and prayers" if in USA.

It means the same thing, it just sounds slightly more appropriate for a corporation in 2010.

Disclaimer: I'm not quite native either.

I'm more interested in the 'blood stained dagger'

Hopefully it is just a bad translation

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