Posted by denised in 
your employees must sign pledges promising not to commit suicide. After a rash of suicides last summer, Taiwanese company Foxconn, component producer for Apple products, added the clause requiring employees to forego suicide as an option.
An option to what? Well while Foxconn execs claim ignorance as to the cause of the suicides, employees report a list of grievances, including:
- earning closer to CNY 950 ($146) per month as opposed to the CNY 1600 (about $246) promised
- forced and under/unpaid overtime
- living with up to six other people in a cramped dorm room
- hostile and military like work environments
- unhealthy and hazardous conditions
A 22-year-old woman who was interviewed about the conditions at Foxconn responded, “”Some of my roommates weep in the dormitory. I want to cry as well but my tears have not come out.”
Following the suicides, Apple went to Foxconn to monitor conditions. They found that appropriate measures had been taken to ensure worker safety. But a report by the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) found that conditions at one of Foxconn’s manufacturing facilities don’t meet Apple’s own Supplier Code of Conduct standards.
Read SACOM’s full report here, and learn more about the conditions under which Foxconn employees are forced to work here.
So, what’s your iPod worth to you, and should we, as Apple consumers, be more concerned with where our gadgets come from?
