Hundreds Threaten Suicide At Microsoft Supplier Plant In China

Corporations are the modern day colonialist, going around the world exploiting nations resources for their own benefit.

reply to post by wutz4tom


Perhaps its come to the point in time where we all will have a responsibility to research who we buy from?

Originally posted by rebellender

Originally posted by Chewingonmushrooms

Originally posted by rebellender

Originally posted by Chewingonmushrooms
reply to post by JJRichey

 

One would think, but that fruit vendor in Tunasia did the same thing and started a spring most will not soon forget. These chinese workers work for pennies (sometimes 16 hours a day 7 days a week) and in terrible conditions so that they might be able to buy some rice. They are slaves, no ways around that. Unfortunately some believe that because you receive a wage then that means you couldn't be a slave which isn't true.

edit on 11-1-2012 by Chewingonmushrooms because: (no reason given)

I think your reply is stereotypical to 20yrs ago but I'm not sure it applies to today. China has accomplished a lot and the world really has no Idea because China has kept MSM out of the mix.
By no means am I arguing with you, I just have to wonder how much of what we know about China is true:::good or bad...
Here in the good old USA people would jump all over $8hr + double shift = $128 strait time right now I will stick my hand up at that....and I am white....where would the ACLU or the Union Boss be then? not dialing my phone to get the story

If this line of thinking is valid 20 years ago but not now, how is it that we still buy their products so cheaply? Why are our jobs getting outsourced to places like China? Why is Microsoft building XBOX's in China and not the USA? Better craftmenship?

And are you seriously comparing 8$ an hour job to a chinese factory worker's wages?

But you are right that they are very secretive about their affairs. Much better for all those that buy their products to not know what happens behind the scenes, for PR purposes of course.

edit on 11-1-2012 by Chewingonmushrooms because: (no reason given)

Yeah I am and dont make into some argument either...you can say all you want about buying cheap chinese,,,Truth is if you are so into human rights you wouldnt have brought up Chinese human rights and the USA selling it at Walmart...Truth is you bring up human rights and cheap stuff and I dont see you leaving $100 bills into the save Chinese workers...you want to dime out your own ideology fine with me but leave my posts out of it...I told you strait up I didnt want to argue with you.

I got nothing and I took no OBAMA money as there was no bail out for me....Yeah, strait up I say $8 in New York City is right on Par with the 25 cents in Metro China any day of the week...while you are at it why dont you stop by some of the Agricultural Fields across the Fruited Plane and tell Mr. Latino and his 3,4, 5,and 8 year old children he has working with him that you also refuse to buy Veggies. I am sure he will thank you very little for supporting his family...He will be easy to spot, he is the one with the Green Card and the wife with dirty hands

China builds X-Boxes because you dont give your kid a $ 1000 a week allowance. How you Union Boyss doing on your Unemployment anyway???? yeah I thought so...Have a great evening. Me? wish I had a hamberger right now. You know like on TV with all the trimmins and sauce dripping off...Char-broiled

Not only is your comment hard to read, but the many points that you make are so full of logic holes and just plain wrong on many different levels, no offense. Wasn't trying to argue with you I was trying to have a discussion, but obviously that's not possible.

Originally posted by korathin
And this has jack to do with "bringing consumers affordable products" and I am coming close to calling you an outright liar. Because I don't know if you haven't noticed, but the price of goods is fairly close to what they cost "before China".

Really? Are you saying that a iphone manufactured in the USA would cost the same as one made in China?

If soo that is pretty damn funny.

Lets see some proof that "the price of goods is fairly close to what they cost before China".

Originally posted by xuenchen
Union(s) in China:

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions ('ACFTU; simplified Chinese: 中华全国总工会; traditional Chinese: 中華全國總工會; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Quánguó Zǒnggōng Huì), is the sole national trade union federation of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest trade union in the world with 134 million members in 1,713,000 primary trade union organizations.[2] The ACFTU is divided into 31 regional federations and 10 national industrial unions.

The Workers' Daily is the ACFTU newspaper.

All-China Federation of Trade Unions

All-China Federation of Railway Workers' Unions
National Committee of the Chinese Agricultural, Forestry and Water Conservancy Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Aviation Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Banking Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Defense Industry, Postal and Telecommunications Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Educational, Scientific, Cultural, Medical and Sports Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Energy and Chemical Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Financial, Commercial, Light Industry, Textile and Tobacco Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Material Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Seamen and Construction Workers' Union

related from 2006:
How Rising Wages Are Changing The Game In China

A labor shortage has pay soaring. That is sure to send ripples around the globe.

we should be so lucky !

Yeah - but the problem is: these are ALL state controlled "unions". They are not, and can never be, comparable to unions as we know them here in the West.

Want to control your workers? Give them a union that YOU the government control. Basically a farce.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

Originally posted by xuenchen
Union(s) in China:

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions ('ACFTU; simplified Chinese: 中华全国总工会; traditional Chinese: 中華全國總工會; pinyin: Zhōnghuá Quánguó Zǒnggōng Huì), is the sole national trade union federation of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest trade union in the world with 134 million members in 1,713,000 primary trade union organizations.[2] The ACFTU is divided into 31 regional federations and 10 national industrial unions.

The Workers' Daily is the ACFTU newspaper.

All-China Federation of Trade Unions

All-China Federation of Railway Workers' Unions
National Committee of the Chinese Agricultural, Forestry and Water Conservancy Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Aviation Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Banking Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Defense Industry, Postal and Telecommunications Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Educational, Scientific, Cultural, Medical and Sports Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Energy and Chemical Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Financial, Commercial, Light Industry, Textile and Tobacco Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Machinery, Metallurgical and Building Material Workers' Union
National Committee of the Chinese Seamen and Construction Workers' Union

related from 2006:
How Rising Wages Are Changing The Game In China

A labor shortage has pay soaring. That is sure to send ripples around the globe.

we should be so lucky !

Yeah - but the problem is: these are ALL state controlled "unions". They are not, and can never be, comparable to unions as we know them here in the West.

Want to control your workers? Give them a union that YOU the government control. Basically a farce.

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed-if all records told the same tale-then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

Originally posted by FreeSpeakerBefore the righteous hate starts against microsoft let me just point out that MS only buys parts from this Chinese company and does not run it. Its chinese owned and governed by chinese laws so please be logical and place the blame on China and not the companies that buy from them.

Really? Microsoft is responsible for their manufacturing contracts. They know that sourcing parts from very poorly paid Chinese slave workers, often children, means a bigger profit margin. That's why they do it. To suggest that Microsoft is ignorant of this is unbelievably naive. It's done on purpose, Foxconn was selected because they were the lowest bidder and Microsoft knows precisely why this is.

You can say that these companies shouldn't deal with this company but then all the things like Iphones, Playstations, Xbox's would cost a hell of a lot more and I'm sure the demanding western consumers would be in a rage and crying hysterically that they cannot aford the new Iphone.

Wow. Why is catering to self-obsessed, childish entitlement issues more important than the very real suffering and enslavement it costs? Why is the trivial entertainment of an xbox or iphone a higher priority than our compassion and integrity? The consumers who need these things to keep them happy and at the lowest prices are dead inside anyway, same as the person on the other side of the world suffering for it. Human beings.

Bring the jobs back. Strip the corporate taxes. Pay well. And let us have the dignity of saving up for our luxuries.

Those of you with the irreverent comments. You have no idea about the real world.

reply to post by jimbo999


Thank you for pointing out that they are in fact State Controlled Unions.
The word union as we know it doesn't necessarily carry the same meaning and effectiveness.
Appreciate the contribution!

reply to post by SteveR


I Agree that these companies need to be somewhat responsible for who they choose to purchase from.
Also, I think some sort of consumer reference should be available so customers have at least some feel for how their purchases are being produced.

Reply to SteveR



Please wake up to reality as you clearly have no idea about the real world. In the real world greedy corporations use cheap labour to fill western stores with junk that western consumers demand. Thats the reality. Microsoft and the other leviathons have no right to tell China how to conduct its business, its a internal chinese matter. Its really that simple.

Your post is soo damn sanctimonious its funny becuause you are using a computer that I am %100 confident has at least one piece of hardware built in a similar factory.

Talk about naive.

Originally posted by wutz4tom
reply to post by SteveR

 

Also, I think some sort of consumer reference should be available so customers have at least some feel for how their purchases are being produced.

Come on, just look at where its made. If its made in china its made by slave labour. No charts or other such nonsense required, just common sense.

reply to post by FreeSpeaker
To me to say that everything produced in China comes from slave labor is foolish.
But Thanks for your opinion and listening to mine.

reply to post by FreeSpeaker


Hows this for jobs in China...

The tropical island of Hainan has launched a competition to find its image ambassador. Touted as the best job in China, the contest is welcoming applicants from all over the world. The winner will walk away with 1 million yuan in prize money, a year-long round-the-world tour and the responsibility of promoting the island.

link

Microsoft will soon be dropping the premium priced xbox 360 and switching to an even cheaper kinect based set top box aimed at mostly streaming tv with only a light focus on games for next gen so they'll really be grinding the costs down

It's gonna cost a lot of jobs in the west as well as in china, I dont think they're even going to launch this one in asia

reply to post by wutz4tom


Please, like china or microsoft give a fart if a tiny 10 million people kill themselves.

Originally posted by JJRichey
Would they really commit suicide over wages? Seems pretty counter-productive to me. BTW, who owns foxconn? Is it a Chinease company then? Maybe Microsoft shouldn't deal w/ suppliers with bad ethics...

Yes they would. Blood has been spilled so people can play Angry Birds for $50 less. It is disgusting.

2nd line.

Hold the phone, people. The American TV show "Sunday Morning" that is shown on (duh) Sunday mornings, completely shattered its previous record as the most inane show in the history of American broadcast television by airing a truly brutal segment on FoxConn on Sunday, January 29, 2012. Here is the link for an online text summary and photos from that interview, which has at least 1 video clip embedded in the online version. On the last page of the text article, check out their links at the bottom of the page, especially the Mike Daisey blog:

www.cbsnews.com...

Who, you ask, is Mike Daisey? Mike Daisey, with whom an interview is also included in the above Sunday Morning show segment, is the only American (so far) to show up in person at the gates of FoxConn, complete with translator, to ask the departing FoxConn employees their ages and how many hours they had just worked. Ages were as low as 14, 13, and in at least one case, 12. As a parent myself, I couldn't help gnashing my teeth in pure rage when I heard that. 12 hours or more worked in one shift was not unusual. Oh, by the way, the text article speaks of one FoxConn employee (age unknown) who worked 34 hours straight, then died shortly afterwards (apparently not a suicide). Anyway, this guy Mike Daisey was so outraged by what he learned by his in-person interviews, and so outraged all over again when he was unable to get any American reporters to follow up on the FoxConn exploitation of its workers, that he created a one-man stage show, which he discussed in this Sunday Morning show segment.

Maybe Apple will pay attention to this problem when boycotts are organized. Sometimes that's the only way to get a corporation's attention.

Originally posted by Uphill
Hold the phone, people. The American TV show "Sunday Morning" that is shown on (duh) Sunday mornings, completely shattered its previous record as the most inane show in the history of American broadcast television by airing a truly brutal segment on FoxConn on Sunday, January 29, 2012. Here is the link for a text summary and photos from that interview, which has at least 1 video clip. On the last page of the text article, check out their links at the bottom of the page, especially the Mike Daisey blog:

www.cbsnews.com...

Who, you ask, is Mike Daisey? Mike Daisey, with whom an interview is also included in the above Sunday Morning show segment, is the only American (so far) to show up in person at the gates of FoxConn, complete with translator, to ask the departing FoxConn employees their ages and how many hours they had just worked. Ages were as low as 14, 13, and in at least one case, 12. As a parent myself, I couldn't help gnashing my teeth in pure rage when I heard that. 12 hours or more worked in one shift was not unusual. Oh, by the way, the text article speaks of one FoxConn employee (age unknown) who worked 34 hours straight, then died shortly afterwards (apparently not a suicide). Anyway, this guy Mike Daisey was so outraged by what he learned by his in-person interviews, and so outraged all over again when he was unable to get any American reporters to follow up on the FoxConn exploitation of its workers, that he created a one-man stage show, which he discussed in this Sunday Morning show segment.

Maybe Apple will pay attention to this problem when boycotts are organized. Sometimes that's the only way to get a corporation's attention.

edit on 1/30/2012 by Uphill because: Added a phrase.

Well its about time,, i blew a fuse when the "Stress Managment Team",, were looking into this congnitive disorder,,,that seemed to be, catching,,,,,FUSE blown,,


Me.

Update: David Pogue, technology reporter for the NYTimes, has finally broken his silence on the growing U.S. consumer outrage over FoxConn's labor practices in China. Here is a link to his latest NYTimes column on FoxConn, Apple, the very recent NYTimes reports on FoxConn's management and labor problems, and an e-mail from a U.S. citizen (Chinese by birth) who was raised in China and gave a helpful explanation of the span of job opportunities in China:

pogue.blogs.nytimes.com...

Fortunately, Pogue also discusses Apple's financial link to the non-profit "watchdog" group that is now collecting data on FoxConn working conditions at their Chinese factories that make Apple products.