Death of Foxconn worker puts supplier back in spotlight

"You either produce and do it right, or the screws are put to you until you either do it right, quit, or screw up enough to get fired."

So far so good. "Screw up enough to get tortured and thrown off a roof" (if that's what happened) is a step or two beyond that.

You are a very pathetic excuse for a human being.

Well then. Since someone mentioned it...

I think you can definetely blame Apple, in part of course, for this incident.

I remember reading the stories published (was it in the NYT?) on the development of the iphone: slamming doors, screaming people into corners, verbal humilliation... and this happened in California, to engineers.

Before there was a death involved, this was really the disappearance of an iphone version 4 prototype. Noone can imagine the pressure Foxconn must have felt. A good amount of this pressure was passed onto the young worker, but the origin of that pressure is Apple.

And also, this suicide to restore dignity of the far Eastern cultures argument is just insulting to read. Can someone who is Chinese say something about this? I find it hard to believe it is something "normal"and within their culture to act like this, in 2009.

Beanpole, what SIP says is factually correct.

One source (with, of course, links to additional sources:)

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

Easier with Western attention on them and Western clients to placate to allow an investigation to go ahead, and find scapegoats among lower management; this already seems to be taking place, with at least one suspension. They'll realise that the "few bad apples" scenario is more persuasive than "nothing to see here".

Besides, it's not the local authorities they need to persuade, but hopefully Apple, who are not without resources themselves, and could make it clear that obstructiveness or an evident cover-up would be read as a sign of guilt. Much depends on Apple's willingness to ignore this, and that depends on our willingness to let them.

This has nothing to do with communism -- rather, it's the runaway criminal capitalist system that's obtained since China introduced uneven economic reforms that allows a for-profit company (Foxconn) to treat its employees like this.

China practices a top-down, tyrannical form of government managed by Communist Party of China (CPC). They alone, have the power to control their country's capitalist development through the CPC. In the last ten years they have summarily executed company executives for publicly embarrassing China's ruling elite and will do so again if bad publicity tarnishes China's image. Will the CPC punish corrupt and abusive Chinese executives if company "management" techniques are hidden from public scrutiny? Of course not!

The CPC will not clamp down on their free market greed because it has become a monstrous revenue stream for their government. They are abusing free market capitalism to acquire immense financial power to dominate markets, and they have done this at a very alarming rate. So the short answer to the question, will another Foxconn "suicide" happen again? You bet it will.

There is always a new iPhone coming. They can't develop the next version instantaneously, so usually by the time one device is out they're at least working on prototyping the next one. Usually, you end up making some prototype devices -- limited test runs -- so that the developers have actual hardware to work on, rather than just simulators.

So this doesn't necessarily mean new hardware is imminent; Apple seems to stick to doing new iPhone releases in summer, after all. And with the 3GS only just out, if this was a prototype for a hitherto-unseen iPhone doubtless the device is targeted for /next/ summer.