Is your job THIS bad?

Just image what you don't see.

This will change nothing. As soon as workers get more rights the company moves to a new country for fresh meat. So in effect if you change the conditions at that plant it will just move putting everyone there out of work. Maybe when they move they will take the nets with them so as not to have people dieing at the new plant.

Why don't they just quit? What does killing yourself solve, that quitting does not?

I mentioned this a few weeks ago....good old DeBono thinking....

Working conditions shit?  People suiciding off the roof?

Masters of lateral thinking install catch nets.

Ya gotta love Steve Jobs.

/me drowns in a pool of sarcastic vitriol ....;p

Work week cut to 60 hours? What was it at?

Wages increased 50%? What was the wage?

To think that I lost my job so my bosses could move it to China makes me sick. Did they lower the price of the product and pass those savings on to the consumer? Of course NOT.

The 14,000 dollar apple product price? That must be if they wanted to get a 1000% return on every penny? How do they factor that cost?

EDIT: I HAD TO POST IT 

looks to me like Apple has gotten way beyond what M$ ever did... percentages of subscriptions sold thru apps, jeez... and where do you suppose the cost of all that ends up? Yep.. prices going up. The consumer pays more for the product due to "The Apple Middle Man".

I wonder if they get a cut of gravity? 

"According to Wolfram Alpha, the median American wage is $42,270 per year. That means each worker generally costs American employers about $15.57/hour. For the sake of this exercise, let’s leave out the high cost of benefits. Even so, the typical American worker makes 30 times more than the typical Foxconn worker.

The low-end iPad sells for $499. If it were built by Americans, it would have to cost $14,970. No one would buy an iPad for $14,970. No one would buy a mid-level laptop for $23,970. No one would buy a smartphone for $5,970."

@  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/is-apples-suicide-factory-outsourcing-to-even-cheaper-chinese-peasants/9537

If you are after some more info ... Hungry Beast always have source links.

http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/sites/default/files/documents/Hungry%20Beast%E2%80%99s%20Apple%20Beastfile%20sources.pdf

The nets don't have to go out that far.  The company can save a couple thousand dollars by cutting the length of the nets in half.  Suicidal people would have to climb on the roof and make a running start in order to kill themselves; that is highly unlikely.  The nets need only deter--not actually stop someone athletic and intent enough that they make a run for it.  If we cut the nets in half, I anticipate suicides will only go up by about 1 or 2 a year but we save $2000 in company costs.

Aaah the Elemental crunch we all heard about  

As to your question of why they did nothing after the first couple - the answer is simple.  They saw no causality nor were they trained or conditioned to recognize such things.  In other words, if you are sitting down eating chocolate, are you really thinking of all the people that hate it?  In a totalitarian society like that, the people (to the rulers and managers) had everything.  So they had no conception there could be a problem - until the numbers started really climbing.

So, I have to wonder if the people complaining about jobs going over seas actually take the price of a US made ipad in to consideration when they do.

Not that I am in favor of them going over seas, but unles they can justify a $14,000 price tag I have to wonder how these people will keep their jobs making products that obviously will not sell at such prices.

You know, after reading this stuff I don't think I will ever buy another product made by Apple.  Sorry I bought my son an iPod for his birthday now.  This is one sick company for sure, and nothing but a bunch of greedy bastards are running it and/or it's subsidiaries.

Then again, so are 80% of the companies in the United States, outsourcing jobs to overseas!  Hell, you call Microsoft Tech Support and you get someone who cannot even speak English well in the Philippines or India, and they're yelling at there kids in the background while you attempt to get your issue resolved!  Sad, very sad...

I've worked 60+ hours at a job and I was on salery, so my pay went dow every hour over 40.  Did that foe a year.  I never comtemplated killing myself.  So if they want to kill themselves, I say go ahead.  Less mouths to feed.  I know I have my own strange ways of thinking but who needs the weak minded, taking the easy way out.  Maybe if enough kill themselves things will change but they won't know it or get the benifit from it.  There are other ways to make changes.

"Give me liberty or give me death."

This quote has been printed and reprinted in our books and other mind-conditioning items and sources.  Many actually find it inspiring...

But tell me, what liberty is there for those who live and die by the dollar?

-.-

There is the freedom of choice. Nobody forced those people to go and kill themselves. Why didn't they just quit? What did killing themselves solve, that quitting would not?

There is the liberty of choosing where you work, and what you do with your money.

I'd guess hopelessness. If they quitted then they would be unemployed and who knows how the welfare system is down there?

One other thing, we buy the crap from China as its about the only thing you can buy.  If you look hard enough you can find things from other countries.  Some even from the U.S.  When Sam was alive, in the 70's & 80's damn near everything in Wal-mart was U.S. made. He died and the place went to shit. And because of that all the companies now produce in China to compete or go out of business.

Just to clarify -

Foxconn is not owned by Apple. It's a factory that does farmed out jobs.

I think that any company that farms out such jobs to a country notorious for human rights violations has an obligation to see that when putting it's product out, workers are paid and treated better.... Unfortunately, they cannot force Foxconn to be humane. The market did that. But there's a fly in the ointment. We don't make things like we used to. That's done abroad. Here's some more info:

A little about Foxconn (or Hon Hai):

"Hon Hai Precision Industry may be the biggest electronics company you never heard of. The company, more commonly known by its trade name, Foxconn, is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer. It manufactures computers, consumer electronics, communications, and other products, including connectors, cable assemblies, enclosures, flat-panel displays, game consoles, motherboards, servers, and televisions. Hon Hai also provides design engineering and mechanical tooling services. The global company's customers include Apple, Cisco (linksys), Dell, Nokia, and Sony. CEO Terry Gou founded Hon Hai in 1974 to make plastic switches for TVs." - http://www.hoovers.com/company/Hon_Hai_Precision_Industry_Co_Ltd/hxjyxi-1.html

Soooo.... If you are going to penalize Apple, you'll have to penalize just about everyone else as well... Mr Gou (pronounced Gwo) is Taiwanese, and his company's factory is in China... sound familiar? The PRC sells it's major resource (labor) cheap... or will until no one else is really manufacturing. Then what will happen? I figure they'll move to the Mid-East, India or Africa. By the time they finish there, they'll move... here.

Not sure why this is "news" today, unless the nets are new. I've seen it reported and commented on in newspaper sites for at least 2 years.

Anyway, to put things into perspective, there are hundreds of thousands of employees working there. Yes, you read that correctly - hundreds of thousands. It truly is a massive facility.

While the number of suicides is definitely disturbing, the suicide rate is actually quite low given the population. Apple has been working with Foxconn for at least a year trying to improve the working conditions.

Maybe, just maybe these folks didn't have a big choice about where they work.... I don't know. I wonder what the conditions were at their work and in their lives that drove them to suicide.

I do know that they couldn't be good, whatever they were.... unless they were all prone to the depths of depression and despair that would lead to something like this, without any possibility of treatment, or anyone to notice their condition. Is this what human life comes to? They must have been in abject misery for something like this to have happened.

I live in an apartment complex, with a high rise.  The day i returned from visiting my BFF near Chicago, I walked in on a police, ambulance, and flashing red light nightmare.  "Miss Wonderful," as she liked to be called, jumped form the 14th floor and killed herself.  her body lay in the back patio, not far from a spot beneath my window.  Later, I found out that a man had jumped a week before.  (and killed himself, as well.).

The bottom line is that as 'multi-national corporations continue to use computer tech to increase profits while squeezing working people, or the un employed,  they also play musical chairs with STATES, and with NATIONS, and the masses of people will keep getting less and less of the surplus bounty that was originally touted as a way for all to have a part in the 'good life.'   Instead, we have the era of the Robber barons all over again, banksters, etc.   Thomas Jefferson wrote that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.  He was right.  

The uber-rich, and their preferred instruments, the uber-corporations, are creating a world where all nations are 'third world' nations, and they sit atop a pyramid of wealth that makes the current national debt seem like lunch money.   The rights of workers have been systematically eroded since the Reagan era.   Divide and conquer, dem- vs -reps.... twiddle dee and twiddle dum, smoke and mirrors on a scale never before imagined.   basically, until all the people not part of the 'haves' in this wonderful new (third) world order band together as one, and throw out the politicians and 'public servants'  (like most recent chairwoman of the FCC!) - the economic carnage will continue.   We are allowing a world to be made, which is inhuman, anti-antithetical to the human spirit / nature.   Most of us know this is happening, even when the sound bites confuse us.  Anyone with a conscience has a difficult time participating in the un-human machine being built.   And the creatures benefiting form all this apparently feel that 'we the people' and beneath them - and not truly as 'human' as they are.   So, some of thise being marginalized, or trapped in wage slavery, or even human chattel, know something is not right.   And some people who feel the pain of others, who have empathy, also feel helpless - and sometimes do the only thing they can do to end their pain:  they kill their nerves- and eventually, they kill themselves.  Long ago, a politician, running for office, in the USA, gave a speech about the dangers of giving corporations new power in the political arena.   (BTW, I am not a christian, but the illustration is from the speaker, not me...)  "Crucify labor on a cross of gold"   Sacrifice  disposable (non-elite) population to get even more money and power.   How many vacation mansions are enough?   How many maids do you have to have?  (IMF, spermanator).   Workers are not humans, they are a commodity to be bought, sold, traded, used, and tossed way when the uber-corp is done with the "its."  

Make no mistake. When they have eliminated the remaining laws that protect workers rights in the USA, (and the West), when they no longer have need of their slick advertising campaigns to 'buy;' the cooperation of enough voters (or scare enough old folks), the smoke and mirrors will be ended.   The curtains will drop.  The velvet glove on the android fist will be removed....   and most of us will be so disoriented, so angry, but more importantly so tired and so alone...  that we will do anything for a little food and water....including selling our little daughters....and our very souls.  This is routine in some parts of the world (Thailand)... and its already coming to a city near you.   

i know, stop bitching and do something.   Well, what do we do? 

Employers use the government's permit regulations and household registration system to intimidate and control the “guest workers”. Each worker has to apply for a permit from their local government to work in the townships. If workers do not have the money to pay for the permit, the factory will advance a loan effectively tying them to the factory and the job. In addition, employers often charge a “deposit” of between two weeks to one month's pay. If a worker's employment is terminated or they leave without managerial permission, the deposit is not returned.

In some factories, management keeps a portion of the workers' wages each month and in other cases retains the permits and identity papers—practices that are illegal but that authorities turn a blind eye to. It is a system of bonded labour. Without documentation workers cannot go back to their village, change employment or even go into the street for fear of a police identity check. Police periodically raid factories. Guest workers without permits are thrown into detention centres, and subsequently deported.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/oct2000/chin-o11.shtml

 

A march on Washington would be a good start. I know many Canadians that would join you.

Anything else I suggest would have me labeled a terrorist, but hey, Thomas Jefferson is one of my all time heroes that I quote often and the Brits labeled him a terrorist. Viva la revolucion.

"Is it a rebellion?" asked Louis XVI of the count who informed him of the fall of the Bastille.

"No, sire," came the reply. "It is a revolution."