More concerns over suicides at Foxconn

Suicide rates are highest in china and common everyday. Why? Because it's overpopulated and the country is ran like a factory / socialist. If you are stupid or dumb or retarded, you do not stand a chance to survive or deserve to exist. so suicide is a way out for these people. Workers continue to commit suicides because foxcom is generously giving 100k to the family of the lost ones if they die on the premises. They die not for themselves but for their family for that kind of money would take 20-30 years to accumulate. Furthermore why is foxcom the center of attention, foxcom is like a saint when it comes to treating employees with humane conditions compared with mainland companies that force unpaid OT, 16 hour workdays, and 7 days a week. What makes me the expert in this you say? i chat with these workers everyday on the internet. Only reason it has caught the attention of you ppl in the usa is because of apple and these major tech companies keep using foxcom as provider for the cheap labor. Did these tech companies even once consider using another vender or use american labor? Or you as a consumer even once consider buying something non apple? heck no whomever has the lowest price / cheap labor gets the contract. Suicides is a common issue everyday in china, they are so use to it, they have one everyday in every major city causing traffic jams, some even help push them down the bridge if they cause a traffic.

The suicide and attempted suicide rate is based on the number of employees at this Foxconn facility -- NOT the total number of Foxconn employees. It's obvious now that the rate is much higher than the "public" -- i.e. other commenters -- believe.

Foxconn's response to their "suicide cluster" seems similar to the responses to the recent suicide clusters at a Palo Alto high school and at Cornell University. These clusters have an aspect of contagion. And as I wrote at http://www.understanding-suicide, Foxconn has the added problem of some workers evidently figuring out that they are worth more money dead than alive, because the death benfits that go to their families are more than workers can make in a lifetime. One reason Foxconn is raising wages 20%?

These poor Chinese workers just about survive on their monthly wages.

They see all these shiny new toys being packaged and shipped off to the West for (in their eyes) rich spoilt people like us to enjoy, knowing that they will probably never afford to buy one in their lifetime.

That alone could lead these poor folk to commit suicide.

Perhaps Foxconn are just as concerned with the (possibly) low rate and are striving to get it up to average? Here's the story: http://weeklycoitus.co.nz/?p=1290

The suicides are because of the payouts to the families, not because of work load. The company is already much better than most factory employers. That's why it's short term employees who are jumping

I'm sorry, but the statistical analysis of Foxconn's suicide rate vs. the country as a whole is nothing but callous whitewashing of a significant issue, and one that Apple and every other company that does business with Foxconn has a moral obligation to rectify. First of all, the national average includes the elderly and the sick, the unemployed, the impovershed, teenagers, the imprisoned, etc. It's a vastly more diverse population than the employees of a single company, and cannot be meaningfully compared. The suicide rate of gainfully employed adults should be vastly lower unless something is horribly wrong.

Further: until Foxconn installed netting, these suicides were jumpers. The national average of suicide includes every tragic method of taking ones own life. Thirteen attempted jumpers in one company in less than six months is every bit as alarming ad it sounds. It means something is hideously wrong.

And here's the thing: jumping off a building is an intentionally public way to kill ones self. It gets attention, people talk about it. This isn't mere depression, it's people using their own deaths to make a statement. And if we see it happen a lot, it's because it is literally the only way these employees have found to draw attention to their working conditions.

Let that sink in for a second. Jumping off a building is never anyone's "plan A". People kill themselves in this manner only when they feel that literally every other avenue is closed to them. That means they've tried everything else: unionizing, writing letters, going to the press, begging, protesting, striking, even violence. Nothing has worked. Nothing.

It's great that Foxconn is raising their wages. It's great that they've installed nets, it's great that they've supposedly brought in psychologists. Foxconn seems to be willing to do a lot to prevent these suicides. In fact they're willing to do anything EXCEPT alter the working conditions of their factories, and but it's the working conditions that are the problem. They're worked too hard, too long an under too much much pressure and some of them find the situation so intolerable that they are literally choosing death. Money won't help the issue, not much anyway. They're not killing themselves because they are underpaid, they're killing themselves because their lives have become unbearable.

So when someone says Foxconn has a lower suicide rate than average, and that this isn't a problem, they are lying. It's every bit the problem that it appears to be, and it's been going on for so much longer than we realize.

I'm horrified by these deaths, but more horrified by those who argue that I shouldn't be.

I just hate it when people keep mentioning that their suicide rate is below national average and what not, it's almost like saying "It's ok 'cuz it's still below the national average suicide rate"

I'd like to see some break down on where within the Foxconn empire of 800K employees these suicides and attempts are happening. if it's happening in all their positions equally and it's below the national average then there's no real story. if it's only happening in specific job categories or locations then there's a problem.

They should make you manager of the plant.