Foxconn Workers Killing Themselves For Money

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What is behind the rash of suicides at Foxconn? If you believe this guy, the workers are killing themselves for money. Better yet, he says that if you remove that money, the suicides will stop. Huh?!?!

Without it, Foxconn finds itself in the position of continuing to pay 110,000 yuan (£11,000) in compensation to every person who jumps. For a depressed Foxconn employee, who still feels an obligation to repay his family for the cost of his or her upbringing and who would like to give his parents a lump sum that could transform their lives, this is a very tempting sum.
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For a depressed Foxconn employee, who still feels an obligation to repay his family for the cost of his or her upbringing and who would like to give his parents a lump sum that could transform their lives, this is a very tempting sum.
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Uh what? No way in hell I would kill myself for a pathetic $15,929 or anything less than $1M for my family.

Actually I would never kill myself for that reason unless I owed the mob money.
 
necrosis said:
Uh what? No way in hell I would kill myself for a pathetic $15,929 or anything less than $1M for my family.

Actually I would never kill myself for that reason unless I owed the mob money.
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That money goes a looooong way in rural china where most factory workers are from.
 
Honor and reputation is everything over in China and Japan.

If your stuck working at a crappy factory making next to nothing (dishonoring your family) and something comes up or your family needs money...Not only do you help your family by jumping, you also can no longer dishonor your family. :(
 
Wouldn't this be considered some kinda insurance fraud or something?
 
necrosis said:
Uh what? No way in hell I would kill myself for a pathetic $15,929 or anything less than $1M for my family.

Actually I would never kill myself for that reason unless I owed the mob money.
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It's somewhere between 1/2 a million to a million to them.
 
If they are seriously paying that much, I am surprised more are not jumping. Forget about rural China, that money goes quite a long ass way anywhere outside of Beijing or Shanghai where it only goes really damn far.

My girlfriend makes 2k rmb a month in a non factory, managerial position. She is educated and can speak English fairly well. While she would not take a leap for 110k rmb...if one of her parents were ill, I am fairly sure she would at least consider it. Remember, there is no safety net here. There is no social security. When you go to the doctor or hospital, you pay cash on the barrel or you fuck off and die somewhere. Family is everything. The shame of not doing everything in your power to help your family weighs heavy here. Seriously heavy.

Should be a fairly easy fix though. Foxconn should reduce the suicide payment to half at most or simply consider suicide a non paying method of death. While the article states that changing suicide payouts to nothing would cause backlash, I can't imagine it would be worse than if the suicides continue.

They are essentially condoning suicide if the payout figures are real.
 
spinelli said:
If they are seriously paying that much, I am surprised more are not jumping. Forget about rural China, that money goes quite a long ass way anywhere outside of Beijing or Shanghai where it only goes really damn far.

My girlfriend makes 2k rmb a month in a non factory, managerial position. She is educated and can speak English fairly well. While she would not take a leap for 110k rmb...if one of her parents were ill, I am fairly sure she would at least consider it. Remember, there is no safety net here. There is no social security. When you go to the doctor or hospital, you pay cash on the barrel or you fuck off and die somewhere. Family is everything. The shame of not doing everything in your power to help your family weighs heavy here. Seriously heavy.

Should be a fairly easy fix though. Foxconn should reduce the suicide payment to half at most or simply consider suicide a non paying method of death. While the article states that changing suicide payouts to nothing would cause backlash, I can't imagine it would be worse than if the suicides continue.

They are essentially condoning suicide if the payout figures are real.
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Foxconn pays for group medical insurance for employers. An article, I think at LATimes I read yesterday outlined some of their benefits. It's part of their Social Insurance/Social Security system, deducted from their payroll. Apparently a government program that was started some years ago, and many big employers are providing to their employees these days.

The article also said they get paid overtime wages, so they are compensated when they work excessive hours. I've also read articles where many want to work the extra hours for the pay, making the assertion that the long hours workers are putting in is by their own desire.
 
Menelmarar said:
Foxconn pays for group medical insurance for employers. An article, I think at LATimes I read yesterday outlined some of their benefits. It's part of their Social Insurance/Social Security system, deducted from their payroll. Apparently a government program that was started some years ago, and many big employers are providing to their employees these days.

The article also said they get paid overtime wages, so they are compensated when they work excessive hours. I've also read articles where many want to work the extra hours for the pay, making the assertion that the long hours workers are putting in is by their own desire.
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If you can find the articles, please link them. I saw one LATimes article that mentioned something about a social deduction but there were no details.
 
necrosis said:
Uh what? No way in hell I would kill myself for a pathetic $15,929 or anything less than $1M for my family.

Actually I would never kill myself for that reason unless I owed the mob money.
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You compare their normal wage/cost of living to the payout and it is LIKE $1 million to their family.

It's really amazing the suicide rate of Foxconn employees are lower than the rest of China (or even the US). Just imagine what'd it do to our already higher suicide rate per 100,000 people if companies here paid a million dollars to the family of any suicidal people.
 
You have to put this theory in its cultural context of honor and familial debt. Now add the worker being depressed and feeling like a failure. NOW, add the corporate "life insurance" that pay out to the worker's family.
Note: I have worked with depressed men right here in the US who have seriously contemplated suicide in order to take care of their families financially via the life insurance.
 
The worst conditions by far at the Foxconn plan appear to be for those employees who work on Apple products. Because of Apple's privacy fetish, those employees practically live in the factory 24/7. Yes, they eat and sleep there also. The other Foxconn employees can at least leave the factory. Just another reason to despise Apple.
 
delahaya said:
The worst conditions by far at the Foxconn plan appear to be for those employees who work on Apple products. Because of Apple's privacy fetish, those employees practically live in the factory 24/7. Yes, they eat and sleep there also. The other Foxconn employees can at least leave the factory. Just another reason to despise Apple.
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Any proof of that or are you just going with the typical Apple hate?

You have a choice to live there or stay outside. The same with any of the plants in the area. Most people stay there because they probably came from far away, and unlike other plans nearby (Asustek) the dorms are free. At Asus at least half their check goes to the dorm, making the fact that they pay more moot. Neither allow visitors if you stay, and most people stay there 24/7 because the plants are 30-40 miles long. It's a expensive bus ride or walk to a different area.

The plant where the suicides are happening also makes Intel motherboards, equipment for Dell, HP and equipment for other firms but pretty much everyone just focus on Apple, even to the point where you really didn't hear that Dell also made a statement about the plant the same time Apple did a couple of days ago. I think Dell's statement was mentioned here but the thread ended up being another Apple sucks fest.
 
necrosis said:
Uh what? No way in hell I would kill myself for a pathetic $15,929 or anything less than $1M for my family.

Actually I would never kill myself for that reason unless I owed the mob money.
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The article stated that is 10 years of salary to most people.
 
Sounds about rite to me.

I'm sure life sucks to the extreme over there and if they can end it and hookup thier family at the same time it wouldn't suprise me if thats what they would do.
 
necrosis said:
Uh what? No way in hell I would kill myself for a pathetic $15,929 or anything less than $1M for my family.

Actually I would never kill myself for that reason unless I owed the mob money.
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There are concerns that soldiers coming back from war zones are doing it for a $100k payout here.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by King Icewind
Honor and reputation is everything over in China and Japan.

Quote:
Just like in Klingon culture.


SO why are Klingons BROWN skinned?:confused:
 
Given that the average Chinese family doesn't exactly have an excess number of children per family and the generally family-centric culture, I highly doubt any family would see the death of a family member positively. Definitely not the death of children.
 
The ignorace and cold brutality of comments I have seen on the internet about this just makes me lose my hope in humanity.

These constant roof jumpers obviously show something horrifying is going on. Remember this is not the USA. It's not like they can just up and leave. Try to be in the worker's shoes. They live at these plants. They hate their jobs. They are paid only the minimum to continue to draw breath. When things get that bad here, you leave your job and move to another town and start over. Hell, the average fast food worker here does far better in terms of quality of life.

We MUST reinstate tarriffs on all imported Chinese goods to equalize the labor rates to western standards. I am stuck using Foxconn and similar products to stay in business. I would rather not at this point but the Chicom product is the only one that allows sales in the range consumers will buy.

Hypocracy? Lets talk about that. I heard that Iphones are made in that plant complex. You mean the enlightened bleeding heart elite of the world would rather buy their iphones knowing they are contributing to the despair and SUICIDE of workers that have no hope in life? Is that the image these folks get when they bought their Apple product?

What about the the whole "1984" video thing? Those workers LIVE that life. And we buy what they make. Cheap good in trade for their very lives. I have real problems with this. It's slavery, without having to sit there and actually look at the slave who made it.

We fought a civil war once here in the USA, and slavery was one major aspect of it. Now we are doing it again but made it impersonal.

These Chinese workers are not "better off" because of our trade agreements. We are not "winning the war" against Chinese tyranny here.

Man... just had to rant.
 
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