Every once in a while you get a story so strange and horrible that it takes a while to sink in. I’m talking about the suicide of a Foxconn employee who was caught doing something with an “iPhone prototype” and jumped out of the window.
Matt wrote:
So the story goes that a 25-year-old man at Foxconn – where iPhones are born – was to send 16 iPhone prototypes to Apple from the Chinese factory, but one was lost somewhere. The Foxconn security department then proceeded to illegally search the man’s apartment and interrogated him. But that was too much for the man that might be responsible for leaking a prototype of the next iPhone.
A few days ago on July 16, he jumped from a 12-story building because of the incident. It’s probably not out of the realm of possibilities that he not only was roughed up, but also lost his job even though that’s not mentioned in the report.
This means two things: that there is an iPhone prototype floating around (a highly dubious proposition considering that they would not have “mailed” any prototypes to Foxconn nor does Foxconn particularly need prototypes from Cupertino – they only need plans and someone from Apple to supervise the manufacture) and that the CE industry is built on false promises and exploitation. It’s financial exploitation, physical exploitation, and psychological exploitation and we’re all part of it.
Human beings make the stuff we buy. We may imagine a graceful ballet of robots welding and soldering, untouched by humans, but someone – probably a young woman from a rural province – is actually snapping the final parts together and testing the screen. She sits there all day. She has a set of requirements that she has to check. Let me put it this way: in the 18th century watches were built in factories using parts milled, piece by piece, by farmers in the Swiss mountains during the winter. These pieces were sent to major cities where humans put the devices together. They were then sent to jewelers who put them into cases. The process of making an iPhone is essentially exactly the same. The process of manufacturing delicate machinery has not changed since the 18th century and at ever step there is some sort of exploitation. The farmers were paid pennies, the movement assemblers were paid a few more, and the consumer paid much, much more.
Every once in a while I get a comment about how bitter I am against the CE industry. It’s because I’ve been watching crap float by my transom for almost a decade and I have a general idea about what will succeed and what will fail and what failure costs in human and economic terms. The majority of what you see is rebadged OEM garbage. Your Dell netbook is the same as your HP netbook is the same as your ASUS netbook. The case and some features are different but in the end, you’re buying permutations of parts over and over again, ad infinitum. When we get excited about something it’s because it’s different.
We fall into these traps, too. We love gadgets. We really do. But we need to gain perspective.
Today’s latest phone is tomorrow’s landfill. Yet companies like Apple hide this fact by dressing their products in a veil of desire. Apple isn’t the only company that does this but it’s the company that’s best at it. Their contracts with Foxconn clearly include absolute security and now those requirements bit them. Perhaps the worker was deranged. Perhaps we don’t know the whole story. What we do know is that someone died for an iPhone and that’s ridiculous.
Fake Steve writes:
We all know that there’s no fucking way in the world we should have microwave ovens and refrigerators and TV sets and everything else at the prices we’re paying for them. There’s no way we get all this stuff and everything is done fair and square and everyone gets treated right. No way. And don’t be confused — what we’re talking about here is our way of life. Our standard of living. You want to “fix things in China,” well, it’s gonna cost you. Because everything you own, it’s all done on the backs of millions of poor people whose lives are so awful you can’t even begin to imagine them, people who will do anything to get a life that is a tiny bit better than the shitty one they were born into, people who get exploited and treated like shit and, in the worst of all cases, pay with their lives.
This is absolutely true. The disparity between the real cost of gadgetry today as compared to the 1970s and 80s is immense. When I was growing up a TV was a major investment. Now I can go down to Best Buy – not Circuit City and CompUSA, right? – and pick one up for a pittance. It’s this race to the bottom that is killing our ability to judge when enough is enough. These things cost something. They cost lost jobs at home and draconian labor policies abroad. They cost water and energy and fossil fuels. They cost in psychological distance.
I am the guiltiest party here. I’ve made my living telling you guys about technology. I’ll keep doing it, too. For every one hundred stupid iPod docks that float by there is something that will change the way we live. I’d like to be on hand to tell you about the next breakthrough and to do that I have to tell you about the next sushi-shaped USB drive. But I’m sickened by the thought that a man died at a factory that makes the one device that I truly think has changed the way we think about cellphones. He died to keep the next generation of that phone from your prying eyes. This is a reason so mundane and trivial that the mind reels.
So let’s go back to chasing the Palm Pre or the HTC Hero or the iPhone 4GS or whatever is next. Fine. It’s fun and it’s a distraction. But can we get a little perspective? Can we accept that this stuff costs us in ways we don’t see? It costs us in terms of environmental damage and human exploitation. It costs us in terms of connections with real, living people. It threatens to turn our children into e-addicted ciphers. I’m cynical and hyperbolic now because this is important.
I’d like your input on what kind of coverage you’d like to see from CG when it comes to the manufacture and sale of these gadgets. I’m planning a trip to China this summer to see all of this first hand – more on that later – and I’d like to do a little more on this than just run the latest press release from Anycorp on their amazing new widget.
Wow great article. Definitely food for thought.
I can’t stop thinking that if MG or Lacey wrote on this it would be titled “Why The Apple Suicide Doesn’t Make Sense, Isn’t Apples Fault, and Wont Affect Their Destruction of Microsoft.”
God you’re an idiot.
Yes, this is too bad, but let’s keep our senses.
It’s just as likely the guy died from an undiagnosed mental disorder or a misplaced sense on archaic Chinese “honor”, as it is that, “he died to keep the next generation of that phone from your prying eyes.”
How does him killing himself positively affect that outcome?
Please don’t let empathy make your mind go soft. For a moment, I started to think this was JB’s suicide note.
Doesn’t anyone see the connection between this and Tiannamen Square?
You people are clueless.
I am with u Ivan
Ivan you’re spot on. MG Siegler would have thrown in a Brown Zune Lolz and then gently reminded us how this couldn’t possibly be Apples fault…heck he probably would have found a way to blame AT&T.
exactly. the guy is an idiot. he deserved to die
and you exhibit signs of psychosis. you deserve to die.
I have something important to share!!! How to you know it was a suicide??? He was MURDERED…
“a highly dubious proposition considering that they would not have “mailed” any prototypes to Foxconn nor does Foxconn particularly need prototypes from Cupertino – they only need plans and someone from Apple to supervise the manufacture”
But the story doesn’t say that they mailed prototypes to Foxconn– it says they were shipping them out from the factory…
Quite true, Ivan.
MG would never write this, it’s not about Twitter.
“When I was growing up a TV was a major investment. Now I can go down to Best Buy – not Circuit City and CompUSA, right? – and pick one up for a pittance.”
They don’t make things like they used to. That TV that was a major investment would probably have lasted a good 15 to 20 years. These days you are lucky to get 5 before the picture or colour starts to go.
This was a great article, and more of us should consider the lifes of the poeple we help exploit to save a buck.
And I agree on the MG point, although he would have found a way to also reference TWITTER… Maybee pulling in twitter qoutes or something, but the TWIT angle would be there for sure.
I come to CrunchGear for Apple v PC comment wars, Snuggie reviews and videos of hot chicks in skimpy clothes getting doused with Diet Coke.
Not this depressing commentary.
Way to make me feel guilty for owning electronics, CrunchGear.
Jerks…
Your the jerk.
I think Aaron was being sarcastic.
Correction, “You’re the jerk”.
And CLEARLY it was a joke, people… I was just trying to bring some levity to the situation.
If we want to have a serious conversation about this, it has to start with, “What are you going to do about it?” Are you going to write letters pledging to pay double/triple/quadruple for the next round of gadgets? Are you going to boycott electronics?
John made a fantastic and irrefutable point that someone, somewhere is paying the price for our comforts and affordability. We can espouse false outrage, or even real outrage, but at the end of the day, what are you going to do about it?
Clearly I’m going to make Diet Coke jokes in a comment thread. Feel free to look down upon me for that. But what are you doing?
I think the problem might be that a blog post about a suicide is not the best place for jokes.
And some people deal with sadness using humor. Telling someone how to feel is inappropriate and you should feel ashamed…
I think Olternaut was being sarcastic… too.
Baby is sad?
Great article. Definitely have a lot more respect for you as a journalist now. Puts stuff in perspective quite well.
A lot more people need to read this article.
Thank you for this article. It’s worth pointing out, like you do, that our world of multitouch wireless micro-gadgetry comes with a price. It’s colonization done differently – the colonial masters have disappeared, they have been replaced by our desire for nifty branded goods.
Very good thoughts here, appreciate the perspective and humility.
@Aaron I think I see a bit of sarcasm, but in case you missed the point, read the article again. :)
i think he’s being silly.
this blog is kinda dumb
This was a bravely honest story about an incident that could have just been a sideshow headline, but which was written with intelligence and true awareness of the context of technology manufacturing and the impact on human lives. I saw Robert Greenwald’s “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices” and first saw the Chinese labor conditions you refer to in your article. I would be very interested to see your follow-up from your trip to China from your unique perspective as a writer in this field. You made me feel human today. Thanks.
What happens in China stays in China. Isn’t that their tourist slogan?
No that’s their industry slogan. “Build your factory here, and we won’t let anyone know of the working conditions”. Very convenient for western corporations, right?
It’s easy to blame just the Chinese, the ones who get the smallest benefit from the industry they host.
I don’t agree. I don’t think we can change the lives of these poor people over night. I don’t think we should feel bad for buying from China – I suspect their lives are far better than they would be if we stopped buying and they all lost their jobs.
In 30 years, those Chinese people won’t be making these things for cheap in awful conditions. They will progress. Admittedly, some other country will take their place in cheap & awful work, but it’s progress nonetheless.
Let’s not forget, these sort of thing would have once happened in London, New York and elsewhere. Eventually economics & politics moved to a point where it doesn’t happen. I don’t think pity will help anybody progress anywhere.
I totally agree, Bob. It’s like the efforts to buy “sweatshop free” fashion and boycott Nike or whoever. If we stop buying this stuff, all of those factories will lay off their workers who, no longer in employment, may be back to poverty and starvation.
I’m not saying that it’s right or we shouldn’t take note, but the only positive way to improve things is for the people on the ground, the companies involved, or the government (right), to try to improve conditions. Stopping consumerism will achieve nothing alone.
I agree. This reminds me of a great video on Globalization I saw a while back. Current conditions in China are not ideal but this is a natural stage in the process of modernization. However, it is tragic that this man had to die over a gadget prototype.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5633239795464137680&ei=tDRnSq_jMIqerwL6yNDpCw&q=globalization
How much did Nike pay this guy to make this film? I’m not an expert in the field, but what really made me take everything he said with grains of salt was that he was simply presenting the pros of globalization.
Next, why didn’t he consider second world countries, i.e. eastern europe, and see how globalization is affecting them: mc’d, nike, etc are competing with local businesses there rather than providing jobs–thus they are destroying diversity.
Competition, local or not, is good.
Eastern Europe used to house these sorts of factories – progress, no?
This will change on its own, more people are becoming middle class
There’s a difference between understanding the developmental problems that China is going through and excusing them. They don’t have to make the same mistakes that we did in the west. We can help them by restraining the free market — if you don’t buy from sweatshops then using sweatshop tactics in your factory gets incrementally less competitive. If our goverment montiors conditions and enacts rasonable, humane standards for imports then sweatshop tactics suddely get *a lot* less competitive. It’s not rockets science. If the market demands organic food then presto, all of a sudden Wal-Mart starts stocking it.
It’s not ‘the market’ demanding organic food if it comes from regulation.
I’m not against all regulation, I just feel that this “humane” notion of capitalism might do the poor people a greater disservice.
I’m unconvinced that they don’t have to go through the same things we did, I think it might be the natural progression of an economy.
i actually agree more with your comment than the sarcastic ones or even the ones who say it’s not our fault that this is so. i mean it is a fact what john is talking about. people who thing this disparity does not exist, even when it concerns the technological realm…are simply mistaken. just because it could be worse if these people weren’t allowed jobs that paid them or treated them like crap, or just because more people are going to be able to work and move from being poor to middle class doesn’t make their working conditions or even the fact that they need to feed your consumption right. it’s all relative yes, but closing your eyes just to make yourself feel okay is nto right either. i mean china is no mozambique or kenya. they are lucky they have infrustructure and that not everyone is living in villages growing rice and other foods…but i can’t imagine having to do what those workers do in a day.
Thanks for this article! Your exactly right about keeping a little perspective. While we all find the Snuggie reviews etc. engrossing, there is definitely something to be said about stepping back and looking at the bigger picture; you’ve said that something. As for Aaron’s comment, I think you’ve missed the point of the article entirely sir.
As someone who’s been living and working in Shanghai, I can tell you that the entire global economy, and of course, China’s rise, is built on the back of millions of poor people like you describe. Whether it’s manufacturing iPhones (these guys got it easy), or building roads and buildings, everything, everything we buy, has a cost well above the price we pay. We outsourced the human cost, that’s why it’s cheap. Plain and simple. The human and environmental cost is outsourced to poor people from rural areas, halfway around the world, and cities and regions that we don’t even bother putting on a map, but that certainly exist.
Do come to China and see some factories for yourself. However, be prepared for this: electronics factories, they offer some of the best conditions. It only goes downhill from there.
Great article indeed, thank you.
So very thoughtful and sensitive of you John. Its a delight reading your articles.
TLDR.
“Too Long” so you “Didn’t Read”?!!! Oh please! Tell me you’re somehow being ironic because otherwise you not only choose ignorance over the few minutes it would take to read (even less to scan) some passionate, thought provoking writing about important issues relevant to all our futures… but you actually make the effort to advertise the fact, apparently with some pride? What the hell is it with people making nonsensical dismissive comments like “TLDR”?! Damn, I’m even more depressed now!
Maybe he can’t read more than 4 letters at a time. =D
Shall we send him to the Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good?
Agree with you Matthew…it is really folks that think (or even just sarcastically state in a way that affects others) “TLDR” that are the great symptom of the downfall of critical thinking in our society. And I’m not being sarcastic. It’s disgusting.
Yeah, the irony seemed a lot more blatant when I posted it…
It’s okay “Richard John.” We know, reading is *hard*. On the upside, you can always get a job at McDonalds. They have pictures on the cash registers there.
(I have to play devil’s advocate as well, though, and admit that some factories around here are 10x more modern and better run than in the US or Europe). And there IS a certain point to be made about “growing pains”.
But there’s still a line that should be drawn when it comes to blatant disregard for human life. Just because it happened during our industrial revolution, doesn’t mean it’s ok for it to happen again, especially since WE’re the ones calling these shots, one would think we’d have learned from our past mistakes.
Wow, surprisingly candid and reflective. I didn’t know you guys thought about that kind of stuff too. I always figured you were perpetually chasing the shiny.
We may not like it but we do need to hear how “this stuff costs us in ways we don’t see”. It’s depressing but so is sticking your head up your own arse and pretending it isn’t going on.
John, you make valid points. Here’s my point – it’s choice of others to accept these contracts for their labor. No one is making them agree to it.
In fact, I’d say we’re helping the other countries by creating some economic activity. They can get their economies moving and over time, more demand and more supply will keep good and our dollars moving at a faster pace, eventually leading to a better life for those putting these things together.
At one point, the US was just like this, as was every other country. This aren’t going to go from having nothing to have full medical care, great colleges, etc. overnight – it takes a long time, and history has shown us that the advances we want come through technological advances in the private sector. It’s not a 100% perfect system, but it has taken economies much further than any other system out there.
On a personal note, I agree that it’s not enjoyable to see people suffering like that. It’s a very hard choice to say that the free market will lead to a better life for them, because we don’t know how long it will take for their situations to improve to decent conditions. Again though, history has shown us that a free marketplace will bring them to a better place than trying to “help” certain people and controlling how much we pay for things.
You are correct in all of your points. However, I don’t think the free market will deliver better lives to people unless we rethink the way we handle free trade. Currently, we pretend that a country with minimal worker’s rights and environmental regulations is on a level playing field with first world nations, and they just make things cheaper and therefore the free market is doing its job. In reality, we should structure minimum standards of worker’s rights and environmental protection into free trade deals. It will make our products more expensive in the short term. In the long term, maybe the landfills won’t be quite so poisonous.
I am all about free trade. But ask yourself one question: How can you have free trade without having free people? If a product is produced cheaper in a country, but 10 times as much greenhouse gases were emitted creating and shipping it, is it ACTUALLY going to COST less in the long term?
Nice article, glad you said this about the electronics industry.
I used to sell electronics, and I often wondered how a store could get some accessories from the warehouse for $1.29 (which then sold for at least $15) that were manufactured and shipped from the other side of the world…
When we feel like we WIN with great deals and lowering prices on gadgets, you can be sure that many people are LOSING due to minuscule pay, poor conditions, and long hours.
Before opening of China to commerce, the lives of the poor country people were indescribably hopeless, bare subsistence farming, exploitation for grinding manual labor, no hope of making money, and without respite until death. The situation now, with all its flaws and growing pains, is infinitely better for the working people of China. It may not be San Francisco quality of life, but for China it is now way better than it has been for generations. A win-win for us and China. ECON101: Commerce is a positive sum game. Don’t cry for China, be happy. They are.
Cut the bullshit. Many of the rural workers are displaced from the farms they’ve held for generations to make space for factories. If they were all “happy” then they wouldn’t be rioting (and I’m talking about Han Chinese riots, not the Uigur problem).
The recent economic history of China is widely available. Read about it. It has nothing to do with ‘exploitation’ of poor farmers. Is it exploitation when the standard of living of people in China has improved enormously? There is no doubt that it improved enormously over the past three decades. On a personal note, having traveled in parts of China, I have seen how this economic revolution has affected so many. Here is the way it was: Imagine yourself working on a subsistence family farm one bad harvest away from starvation. Your pay? About 6 cents per hour for your backbreaking dawn to dusk manual labor. All of your family and their ancestors stuck on a ‘family farm’ or a ‘collective’ farm. Stuck in a grinding poverty with no hope or knowledge of anything different. Then the economic system suddenly changes, and something new happens. (1) You can go to work in a factory making ten times as much per hour. (2) You can support yourself and even send home money for your family. (3) Your family can move into a house instead of a dirt floor hovel. (4) You can even afford to get married and start your own family. Some western kibitzers like to sneer at a wage of 60 cents an hour, but for people used to making 6 cents it is a wonderful new and hopeful world.
-Capitalism it’s a POSITIVE SUM GAME.
Fantastic article. What makes it more refreshing and influential is that it’s written from a perspective of a tech blogger and not a NGO representative. We all get lost in this flood of gadgets, don’t we?
And it’s even easier to forget about other, anonymous people out there. Thanks for reminding.
Now that was technical commentary worth reading! Thank you for being passionate and logical. Thank you for asking us all to take a step back and look at the big picture; we too often lose a high-level perspective while we’re chasing the details.
From one writer to another, I sincerely appreciate that piece. Thank you for saying what so many of us feel and don’t have the power to say.
Not to mention the people who have lost their lives in the U.S because someone wanted their ipod, itouch or iphone and decided to rob and kill them for it?
Biggs, you went for sensational with your title, you didn’t go far enough on the chain, is not Apple at the upper end, it is YOU … and me, and all other consumers driving this from the top. You should rename your post to: How I Killed a Guy In China.
Keep this up, John!!!
Yes, wouldn’t it be great if we could all live like millionaires! Please understand that these companies are not forcing anyone to work for them. If they want a higher standard of living, the people should rise up and create a government with economic and political policies more like the United States–better than the United States. No one gave the United States what they have. The people took it. I’m not going to feel guilty because my ancestors were smart enough to create a country based on freedom. Yes, I was lucky to be born here, but anyone can have freedom if they demand it.
This story is striking, however we should be cautious here – it’s been related by the China Daily only I believe, with a lot of “might”, “may”, “probably”… We don’t know for sure that there is a direct link between the Apple sample incident and the guy’s suicide.
In any case, Foxconn over-reaction is very symptomatic of the unbalanced relationships that the major western retailers / distributors have with their Chinese suppliers – and it is yet again another stone in Apple’s “fair trade” garden…
This opinion is very emotional and misleading. The world economy is a very complex animal. Maybe you should research just how poor these individuals were before they started getting contracts to assemble iPhones. Anglo-centrists tend to view the world through their own prism. These Chinese laborers don’t live my lifestyle, so they must be miserable and unfairly exploited by the West and it is my responsibility to get them up to our standard of living tomorrow. The statement of an armchair economist who cannot think beyond the first stage of economics. Have patience. 50 years from now Americans may be assembling the iPhone 10G for the Chinese market.
I agree. I love how people just think the United States got to where it is automatically. And we can do the same with other countries. It takes time and it follows a natural progression.
Yes, there is no question that the rural migrants who work in the factories are improving their lives by working in them. This is exactly what happened in the US and all of the other countries that are now industrialized. However, a little bit of external pressure through free trade agreements that guarantee worker’s rights could help speed up the process.
I agree.
Great article, John and its not just gadgets.
Take your nice peeled prawns you buy in the local super market. They are all peeled by hand. The workers peel prawns for 12hours every day, one day off a week.
Understanding where are product comes from is important. As we all become more aware and start basing purchasing decisions on the ethics behind our consumption, the businesses will listen and the workers lives bettered.
But we will have to cough up a bit more…
There is reason to feel guilty about this death, but there’s no reason to feel guilty about, in general young women from rural provinces manufacturing phones. As a commenter above mentioned, so long as the labor is voluntary, we’re creating economic activity. China’s poverty rate has plummeted and the country’s GDP has been soaring exactly because of its strong manufacturing sector.
Wow. That was a great post. We should all think about where our products come from, and what we can really do about it. Boycotts are so unlikely to be successful anymore, which makes it hard to sacrifice my desire for an iPhone. And yet some of Apple’s policies have changed under pressure (e.g. Greenpeace’s Green Apple campaign).
This argument doesn’t just apply to the CE industry. Think clothing too, and others. Big question is “What do we all do about it?”. Because the only way I can see to fix this is to use less stuff, keep the stuff we do use longer, and pay a proper price for it all – and all that causes problems too. But it needs to be fixed and soon. Anybody got any better ideas?
Good article, but you left one thing out, or at least glossed over it – Techno-papparazzi’s role in this supply chain that causes the insatiable need to “break” the next story.
Apple et al use outlets like yours to hype the fact that they are “super serious” about secrecy (the most cynical might attach this suicide getting so much attention as a story to that end) and this extraordinary hype makes people want it more and more. The inevitable side effect is the person who can actually GET a picture/video/whatever to you from their blog will inevitably get massive kudos from CrunchGear and massive street cred from a bunch of other geeks. And since there is a lack of self respect in many many people, getting validation from other geeks drives them like no other force.
So I think its incredibly sad that someone committed suicide over they hype machine cycle but recognize things like CrunchGear and their ability to make a Geek famous drives geeks to steal company secrets, leak them, and do stupid s**t like hack personal accounts of Twitter founders and leak the stolen information even if they’re risking getting arrested for hacking those accounts…or, in the ultimate case, stealing a prototype for $$$ probably, only to crack under the pressure of losing their job and reputation over something so stupid and doing something so tragic…
Joel, good point, i agree, but we should also reason that, crunch gear is here, because of people like us. if they had no traffic, why would apple approach them ?
Yes, it is about writer ethics and not crossing the line, but have we not crossed that line a decade ago everywhere…now all it matters is profit.
We are all in it…we have to face the consequence. its sad.
Thoughtful article.
Its a big sham, based on lies, we have not progressed a bit but just living a market of lies
Well there are exploitations in any level everywhere. People shouldn’t die over a phone of course. But it is not just simple ‘exploitation’ that is happening. I grew up in a country that was ‘exploited’ by ‘western’ countries and now we sell the technology and yes, phones -about 30 percent of phones sold in the world. You should realize that the life that you say as exploited in many levels, might be a dream life of someone. Yes it is indeed sad that it is or might be. But everyone has different situations. I’m not saying that poor wage for employees are justified. We need perspective but the perspective shouldn’t be something simple as ‘there are exploitation all over the world because of our desire for gadgetry and technology’. The situation is much more complex and deeper than that. We need a perspective but with balance.
Thank you for this expose, John. I heard that a new book, Cheap, by Ellen Ruppel Shell, covers some of this same territory. We do have it good here with all our gadgets made by those in lesser circumstances. I think the key is to remember it is all relative, and ensure through social responsibility and environmental sustainability programs that the most optimum conditions exist in all worksites. There is a lot of progress already made, and still more to do.
Originally from Shenzhen, I actually did an research about the working situation at Foxconn.
Through chitchatting with Foxconn employees, I learned that the compensations there were meager even by Chinese standards: a bachelor’s degree got you roughly $500 a month. You got free housing at factory dormitories and approximately $3 daily as food stipend.
Talking about exploitation.
And there is a caveat: you are assumed to work 23 hours of overtime each week. For each OT hour you miss, your monthly wage gets deducted accordingly.
The employees I talked with revealed other gruesome stories about the management. I am not comfortable with posting those unverifiable anecdotes involving extreme physical discipline. But I feel the gist of those stories goes like this: Apple demands absolute confidentiality and brutal cost control on Foxconn’s part. Foxconn responds by implementing some seemingly “scientifically-devised” Fordism management structure that relies on psychological terrorism and mob justice. In this case, the defenseless Danyong Sun is the victim of the dehumanizing system.
Important post. I’ve never read CG before, but I might start now.
Let’s not forget that every time we get a new phone/tv/computer, the old one gets broken apart piece by piece by people working in worse conditions than the folks who made them. This work doesn’t happen in factories in cities along China’s flashy eastern seaboard, it happens in villages that are now more polluted than anywhere else on Earth.
The folks who mine the coltan and such also have tremendously hard lives, far from our attention. I hope you begin to tell some of these stories, starting with your trip to China.
Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal — that there is no human relation between master and slave.
Right…. the other difference between one is voluntary and the other isn’t.
meaning these poor people are victims of having to make money and will do anything to get even the smallest amount in return, an amount that has barely any effect on improving their lifestyle. they are caught in a trap / catch 22 it is a real shame.
Go study economics please.
I will never buy an iPhone! Thank you… great report! Hope little yellow men and women won’t be exploited for our multitouch fun… But this hope is frail.. I keep wondering all the worlds gadgetry is made in a handful of factories in Asia where there is no distinction between slavery and freedom… So what are these Electronic Giants give back to the people who make it happen? What sets their products apart if they are all born in the same mothers womb? (Factory)…
it’s easy enough for me to hate Apple branding- it’s insidious and smug, and it brainwashes the less discriminating among us into being Apple sheep. however, to post a comment that says “yeah! talk all that shit about Apple!” misses the point. it’s like a Chevy v. Ford argument: superficial and couched in subjectivity the likes of which cannot be swayed. i like Chevy and i hate Apple products. that’s cool, but my carbon footprint, as defined by all the electronic and household equipment that depends on me to pollute belies me as just one like everyone else.
at the subcutaneous level, however, there lies a reality that American consumers can’t handle. it makes us squirm, shift in our seats and keeps us from making eye contact with the dark, dirty truth. we have more than we should. we have more than we need, and often we have more than we even want. we’ve reduced ourselves to compulsive, willpower-lacking slavering fools for the next gen doodad. i try to only have one of everything yet by having more than one household appliance, i’m guaranteed to have more clocks in my house than i can use at once.
better too many than not enough, i suppose, so i can be met by a chorus of judgement when i fly out of the house, inevitably late to my next appointment. thanks clocks!
anyone who claims that our Chinese product roots are normal or “just another step” toward some future incarnation of society is avoiding the fact that we can make everything we buy here, but we’d have to relearn the value of a dollar and the hard day’s work that accumulates them in our bank accounts. $99 iPhones have recently been normalized- it’s the power of branding! yet, whether two or three figures, people toss money hand over fist to be the first or the best or the coolest. the idea of prestige has us by the collective balls while we ignore its shoddy plastic casing and low-quality innards, which are made from blood-soaked greed deals struck with the devil.
that man should not have felt the legal and social pressure to off himself as a direct result of a lack of judgement. that it comes from a work-related incident inflames me even more. there is no job, no position, no paycheck that should drive a twenty-five year old to an option best left to the old or dying. to die for an inanimate object- a ludicrous notion.
thank you for bringing this to my attention. i naively hope there will be further follow-up in the press. this is not because i’m a big fan of the Human Death Theatre macabre, but because it’s going to take huge swells of information to shift the mainstream paradigm away from our current too-cheap-to-be-true immediate self-gratification driven rush toward a precipice that’s going to ultimately dash our hopes of a true science fiction future because we blew our economic and technological load on the first phone with a touch screen.
Apple still sucks.
Okay, your writing is way to flowery. Second, the people who strike the deals with the Devil will pay.
too* flowery, you mean? don’t hate the skills! i’ll take it as a compliment ;-)
as far as the deal-strikers go, they won’t pay as long as they’re getting paid.
Apparently, everyone not writing the same style as you or that does not have the USA-centric capitalist world view as you is wrong.
Consumeristic idiot.
We just need the plain truth, exactly like this expose. Thank you !
All of a sudden “IPhones” are born and you make all types of accusations about the working conditions based on the suicide of a worker who allegedly took an IPhone prototype. This type of event (corporate espionage) occurs right here in the good old US of A on a semi-regular basis be it the attempted sale of Coke’s formula to Pepsi or product tampering issues. Sad that the man committed suicide but it was an extreme reaction that sets off this searching for the Romantic/Arcadian myth of the noble individual toiling away in the village green. Many years ago I had a friend who went to Africa and was surprised that they had highways and airports. Planting rice from sun-up to sun-down and watching your crops get decimated by the weather or destroyed by insects is a hell of a thing. Being abused in a factory is equally as numbing to the soul. Starving or being sold into prostitution really, really sucks-have you ever spent some time in Bangkok, Laos, or Cambodia?
The dawn of the industrial revolution was nasty, brutish, and dangerous. It was not the intent of Apple or Steve Jobs to have this man commit suicide. Not every flap of a butterfly’s wings creates a hurricane. Leave this pointless soul searching on the couch where it belongs. Danyong Sun jumped out a window: Ask not for whom the bell tolls it tolls for thee.” But, that doesn’t mean you or anyone else put his neck in the rope.
Meh. This suicide has a lot less to do with the CE business then you make it out to seem. It has A LOT to do with global competition and the Chinese stigma of failure. Just a sampling:
http://www.google.com/search?q=suicide+china
http://www.google.com/search?q=toy+suicide+china
http://www.google.com/search?q=pet+food+suicide+china
As far as pricing goes, keep in mind that TC reports frequently on “freemium” business models. It is a competitive strategy that crosses many industries:
http://abovethecrowd.com/2009/07/15/bill-gurley-on-the-free-business-model/
Get used it to, that train has left the station…
OMG!!! Someone in some media outlet has finally decided to look at the ugly underbelly of our society! I can’t thank you enough for this article and for your commitment to follow up by getting a first hand look at it. While I don’t like the idea of my fun little gadgets costing more, I believe that if there isn’t a change in our lifestyle, someone, somewhere is going to force a change in a very unpleasant way (a major war with a country that has a much larger population than ours, or the combined populations of developing countries ganging up on us). Retribution will come eventually in one way or another, either we can be proactive and have it come peacefully or we can ignore it until it’s too late.
oh come on, people commit suicide all the time for many reasons some even more trivial than this. Sure it’s sad but you, John, and everyone else on here will have forgotten it in 48 hours. You know thats the truth.
Cut the crocodile tears already and false symphony, it’s pathetic.
I know the true questions in the minds of most of you.. “I wonder if he posted any photos before he topped himself?’.
Nothing against Matt and his reporting skills, but how does he know that Foxconn’s interview and search was illegal?
Because the chinese reports say so.
The Fake Steve Jobs post was epic. Obviously fake, because the real Steve Jobs would only care about the missing iPhone, not the loss of a meaningless human.
Where is the prototype?!?
I’d worked for a “while” in Shenzhen (china). The actual condition are much better now than 5 – 10 years ago, but still are far for what a normal job in a western country is.
A quit my job after the factory I worked in was moved to a special economic zone in Indonesia, were the conditions for the workers were even worst.
The first step of our beloved IPhone, netbooks, laptops, etc, starts in Congo, where childrens are ripped off by the milicians and their own goverment to dig in search of coltan.
I beg you all to read any article or watch any of the good documentaries in internet.
What is this “internet” you speak of?