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Comment by ramblerman | Hacker News Reader

What a naively written article. Jobs was indeed a visionary with a passion for technology. But he was an extremely shrewd businessman.

igadgets are all manufactured (by hand) in china, in a factory that consists of 300,000 workers! They might easily work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. And suicide is rampant.

This keeps costs as low as possible, and allows apple to focus it's big profit on further innovation.

Fair game in my opinion, I'm not one to judge the morals on this issue, But call a spade a spade.

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> And suicide is rampant.

No. It fucking isn't.

The Foxconn suicide rate is well sourced on Wikipedia [1].

Here's the interesting bit:

"In 2010, Foxconn's worst year for suicides with a total of 14 deaths, their total employee count was 930,000 people. The suicide rate for Foxconn this year was 1.5 per 100,000 making it well below the national average (around 7% the national average). Even if calculated as if all the employee deaths were from the Shenzhen factory complex alone (to simulate a localised area suicide rate), which in 2010 had a workforce of 450,000, the rate is still well below the national average at 3.11 per 100,000 (around 14% the national average)."

Also worth pointing out, that this is significantly lower than the US suicide rate, as documented by the national institute for mental health [2].

Please stop propagating this myth.

Also, this took me LESS THAN THIRTY SECONDS OF RESEARCH. Please learn to think for yourself.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

[2] http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-u...

The article, mid january, about the 100 or so workers 'threatening' to jump, the 'suicide nets', and a recent bill maher episode obviously swayed my perception for the worse.

You are correct, the high suicide rate seems to be a myth.

I think those workers were building Xbox for Microsoft

Do you notice something about the Wiki sources? It lists people who climbed to the top of the building and jumped off it in a public manner. This isn't every suicide related to work at Foxconn. These are the undeniable suicides.

If you think this is normal, I'd like you to show me the list of large, public companies in America that had employees climb to the top of the building in 2010-2011 and jump to their death. It doesn't happen.

Could you leave it open to the fact that maybe, just maybe, there are interests at play here that may want to keep a story like this under wraps? Mainly the Chinese government who craves the foreign investment and Apple, the biggest company in America that's banking billions in cash? I bet if this was Goldman Sachs, we'd be all over over it.

>Please learn to think for yourself.

Exactly.

Knowing a bit of history, what is easier to believe:

1. That a massively profitable American company ignores the work environment of a factory in a second world country, but insists on low cost production, which results in worker abuse.

Or, 2. Everything is great at Foxconn and this is all a big conspiracy to bring down Apple.

Really? The only two options are that Apple doesn't care or that it is a conspiracy? How about:

3. That most people will look at the situation with the same lenses they look at Apple with. Those that hate Apple will see their internal monitoring cynically as a PR move with little substance, and those that love Apple will be glad to know that it is doing more than the competition and will believe Tim Cook when he says he takes the problems seriously.

Even in the future if conditions improve, Apple lovers will credit Apple, and Apple haters will credit the increased demand for labor or the Chinese government for improving worker conditions.

The reality, like so much of the real world, is a complex grey area that is difficult to analyse just from what you read on the internet.

So, you mock the fact that I have two options, then throw out the generalization that people who believe Apple is at fault are "Apple haters"? That's the only option? Seems reasonable.

But in fact, there are only two options: either there is a labour issue, or there isn't.

I understand how this works. I know that working at Foxconn is better than working in the rice fields, and that this is how economic progress happens. History is filled with it. But that's also my point: history is filled with problems like this.

So, I'm going to challenge the assertion (most often made by westerners) that what has happened at Foxconn is perfectly normal. To make a statement like the OP, that this propaganda needs to stop, is ludicrous. These problems will solve themselves, and conditions will improve, but only if we maintain an open dialogue about the issues, rather then telling everyone that anything negative is propaganda.

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

I've seen it myself. When I was in high school, one girl committed suicide and days later two others attempted suicide in the exact way she did. This is a normal behavior of a depressed human mind.

I'm not saying that everything is great at Foxconn. I'm saying that their employees are often happy to be employed at all, and sending money back to their families. I have friends who work on the Xbox hardware teams and have been to those factories. It's my understanding that the working conditions are clean and safe, but intense and fast-paced.

Sure, it's a shitty life overall, but Foxconn is easily on the nicer end of the Chinese factory spectrum. Relative perception really matters to influence suicides. As a result, I'd expect the suicide rate to be lower than among peers. If we beat up on Foxconn instead of on the Chinese government, then all we're teaching these businesses is "You can still treat your employees like shit, just avoid showing up in US newspapers".

igadgets are all manufactured (by hand) in china, in a factory that consists of 300,000 workers! They might easily work 12 hour days, 6 days a week. And suicide is rampant.

Are Sony gadgets manufactured any differently?

Also, considering Apple is probably the only major consumer electronics company to actually be transparent about working conditions (unlike the others who also do the same thing but don't care), it's not only unfair, but seriously biased "hateboy" fare to keep picking on them about that, especially out of context for no apparent reason.

Apple is also famous for supply chain management and embargoes; if that isn't profit focus what is?

You're missing the point. ramblerman was just pointing out that Steve Jobs actually was interested in profitability and if he wasn't he probably wouldn't have moved manufacturing to China.

no sony, microsoft and many others employ the services of foxcon.

I own a few apple products, I wouldn't consider myself a "hateboy". I just think Steve Jobs should be called a businessman, and not some idealist who didn't care about profit.

Oh, I totally agree with that point, but the Foxconn thing really seemed like a cheap shot.

Jobs actually tried to set up a custom factory to build computers in the 80's. He learnt from that lesson why it wasn't a good idea. (read this from an older version of an "unauthorised" biography).

it does keep costs lower, but there's nowhere else in the world that has the capacity to create the igadgets at such volume. foxconn creates about 50% of the worlds electronics (source:mike daisy's "agony and ecstasy of steve jobs - should probably be double checked)

either way, they don't have an options of another place to build the devices because of capacity reasons.

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