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Comment by eriksank | Hacker News Reader

The public-relations fallout concerning their labour practices has become a serious problem for Foxconn. I think that they should voluntarily appoint international-standard labour auditors to vet all their labour practices and to phrase recommendations as to what exactly their management should seriously consider changing. The foxconn management may not always be aware of sensitivities in their overseas markets. With small changes in their procedures, they could already achieve quite a few things. It is not a problem to hire students and interns, but they should beware of anything that could make it look like indentured labour.

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>The public-relations fallout concerning their labour practices has become a serious problem for Foxconn.

What do you mean by this? What are the ramifications of this "serious problem"? Are they making less money?

Consequences do exist, although it's still very minimal. This may prompt Sony to do something as significant as Apple's move though and actively audit the companies they work with -

    In one case, Apple terminated its relationship with a
    component maker after discovering 74 cases in which 
    underage workers were being employed. Apple also found 
    that an employment agency had forged documents to allow 
    children to work illegally at the supplier.

    Apple reported both the supplier and the employment 
    agency to the local authorities, the company said in its 
    latest annual report on the conditions in its supply chain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/technology/apple-labor-aud...

> " This may prompt Sony to do something as significant as Apple's move though..."

Where do they [or Apple] go if not Foxconn? Foxconn is huge. Moving production elsewhere, even outside of a major product launch, is likely in the realm of the infeasible.

I don't know much about this stuff but presumably Foxconn has competitors - Samsung and Qualcomm maybe? I'm not sure Foxconn would even fail the audits at this point, they copped a lot of flack for their appalling work conditions and suicide rates in 2010 which I believe contributed to Apple's stance on work conditions since it reflected terribly on them too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

Foxconn... really doesn't have any competitors at scale. Maybe Quanta, but that's it off the top of my head. They are unlike any other company in the world. Too big to fail, and too big to give a shit about human rights sounds about right for them.

I suppose the common approach is to go look for another contractor, ignoring the possibility that that contractor might sub-contract back to Foxxconn... but maybe I'm just too cynical.

But that's not Foxconn, is it? From what I can see outside of Chinese labor cost inflation it's been pretty smooth sailing for Foxconn in recent years.

It wasn't Foxconn, but I think after Foxconn got dragged through the spotlight in 2010 they had to clean their act up significantly - but I don't know if this is just the groups that work with Apple or their entire operation. The link I posted above did have a pretty drastic drop in suicides after 2010.

Apple, Sony, and everyone still uses Foxconn to make their stuff and it appears no one has boycotted the client company's products over it. I think as it stands right now, it makes them money.

Of course morally, someone should fix it. However, the market hasn't created a financial incentive.

re: market. I've been waiting for this "fair phone" with baited breath. it's supposed in ship pre-orders in December now!

http://buy-a-phone-start-a-movement.fairphone.com/en/fairpho...

but can anyone tell me if this is compatible with U.S. carriers such as T-Mobile? It is very focused on Europe!

It's not perfect, but it's emphasis is on sourcing materials fairly, which is a problem on par with that of coercive labor problem. they also claim to be improving labor conditions.

I went to an event they held in London recently and got to try one out. They seem to have a working product right now and are in the process of firming up their supply and manufacturing, and polishing the software.

They acknowledge their phone won't be perfect, but they want to improve as they go and they seem to be making a lot of strides already in stuff like mineral sourcing and labour practices.

It has a dual-sim and I'm pretty sure the guy said it would work internationally.

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