Foxconn's Other Dirty Secret: the World's Largest "Internship" Program 183
pigrabbitbear writes "In light of a series of reports that have emerged over the years, one of many dark stories of suicide now points at one of the lesser-known but more unsavory aspects of Foxconn's much-criticized labor practices: with the help of schools and government officials, the company runs a massive internship program built not on voluntary education but on 'compelled' factory work for teenage students. According to Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation."
It's a great opportunity! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm looking forward to working my way up. Some of the old timers have made it all the way up to the roof they said.
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But then you jump off into the company-approved safety net. Then you get suicided.
Internship anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
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Ssshhh, don't give away Hollywood's dirty secret. The entire LA area will have a severe waiter shortage if anyone gets wind of this.
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Plus the "EA Spouse" [livejournal.com] debacle of course led the entire Slashdot herd to boycotting Electronic Arts' games.
No? Inhuman working conditions are not an issue as long as they get to play Dragon Age?
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I can't speak for every company, but in my company internships are viewed as a way to recruit talent while also providing a service and still getting some level of business benefit. The process resembles Google's Summer of Code in a sense - anybody who wants to hire an intern has to essentially propose some kind of project and there is a selection process. You can't hire an intern and just give them a stack of papers to file. They can perform routine administrative tasks as part of their job just like an
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Leapfrog Technology Group abuses interns (Score:2)
Leapfrog Technology Group abuses interns
Here is the job add with some added mark up
Fun points are up 6 months full time with no pay
and they have the balls to say "This means that if you don't believe there is any value to 12 weeks of unpaid on the job training, then this opportunity is not for you. We're looking for those individuals with long term aspirations in mind, not someone simply looking for a paycheck."
added mark up start with --
What is an Information Technology Internship?
An IT Internship
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Who cares (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
It's so shiny and Apple claims it really, really cool.
You mean nokia, HTC, moto, sony, samsung, et al aren't Foxconn's customers?
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Of course they are. Apple just happens to be the hand-picked boogey man at this time.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
Makes sense. Apple makes a HUGE margin on their devices and has $80B+ in the bank. They could certainly afford to build them right here in America, and still make a nice profit, but they choose not to.
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To be fair people don't buy iPhones as such. Most iPhones come on a contract and is over paid for by a large margin. The increase in cost would be largely paid by the cell phone companies who will be reluctant to charge more than the other cell companies, for the sake of what $40 is the sum banded around.
The Itouch and wifi only tablets would be more expensive but they could still be produced in china or people can go for the contract option and 3g
The only losers as such would be the cellphone carri
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Regardless, islaves make Apple money. Everything else is just spin and damage control.
But hey, did you hear about the features on the next ipad?
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Re:Who cares (Score:4, Informative)
Keep working hard kids (Score:5, Insightful)
One day you might get paid!
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Correction: Once we've ruined your hands we won't have to worry about paying you -- We'll have already extracted all the work from you as you're capable of providing for free. The older kids are glad to replace you at entry level fees -- It's better than starving on a farm.
It's really quite sad. Too bad NOTHING is made in the USA / Canada anymore.
Re:Keep working hard kids (Score:4, Insightful)
Plenty of things are made in the USA and Canada these days. Microelectronic gizmos, not so much,
Re:Keep working hard kids (Score:5, Insightful)
That's about it.
Re:Keep working hard kids (Score:4, Informative)
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And weapons, we in the US loves us some guns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters [wikipedia.org]
Assembled under Japanese administration. (Score:2)
Honda, Toyota and Nissan: Golfcarts assembled in USA from foreign and domestic parts, in states with worker hostile laws
Re:Keep working hard kids (Score:5, Insightful)
It's better than starving on a farm. It's really quite sad. Too bad NOTHING is made in the USA / Canada anymore.
Right. Then they could all starve on farms.
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It's better than starving on a farm. It's really quite sad. Too bad NOTHING is made in the USA / Canada anymore.
Right. Then they could all starve on farms.
Traditionally, farms exist to produce food. Or, did you mean "starve" as in unable to buy iBaubles? Okay, you got me there.
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Re:Keep working hard kids (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, about 65% of what US consumers buy is made in the US. It is a myth that nothing is made here. It's mostly the clothing and consumer electronics and other cheap plastic shit which are so completely outsourced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/worldbusiness/20iht-wbmake.1.20332814.html [nytimes.com]
"Thirty years ago, U.S. producers made 80 percent of what the country consumed, according to the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an industry trade group. Now it is about 65 percent."
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"Thirty years ago, U.S. producers made 80 percent of what the country consumed, according to the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an industry trade group. Now it is about 65 percent."
I wonder what percentage of what is made in the US is just corn-based junk-food, and how has that percentage increased in the last 30 years.
IOW, we still make 65% of what we consume, but an increasing percentage of this is devoted to turning industrialized calories into poop, as opposed to creating products that require and promote useful activities.
Statistics thrown off by... (Score:3)
McDonald's food probably qualifies as industrial goods, and is probably 99% made in the in the good ole USA!
Wow. (Score:3, Funny)
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Get 'em young (Score:2)
Train 'em right, and they'll never leave.
Wasn't there a church with that same philosophy?
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"a" church? Implying only one does that?
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Brodie gells!
One more for not mfg'ing in the Third World. (Score:5, Insightful)
"In light of a series of reports that have emerged over the years, one of many dark stories of suicide now points at one of the lesser-known but more unsavory aspects of Foxconn's much-criticized labor practices: with the help of schools and government officials, the company runs a massive internship program built not on voluntary education but on 'compelled' factory work for teenage students. According to Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation
Which is also called slavery.
This is yet another reason why we shouldnt be manufacturing in hellholes that will bend over backwards for business, but snap the backs of the people that work for them (should they ask for more than the company approved allotment of freedom).
Perhaps US & EU manufacturing isn't a bad idea after all.
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Why do you hate capitalism so much?
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Internships are also common in America, I thought you had abolished slavery? And Foxconn factories are less hellholes than the subsistence farms they fled to get experience and work.
US & EU manufacturing is not a bad idea in itself, but the cheap consumers and high volumes needed force the companies' hands. Even Samsung recently moved their camera manufacturing from Korea to China to save money. Plus if you really mean that, you would need to move all manufacturing - parts and assembly - here. Do you th
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Nobody in the US is compelled to take an internship, and as a rule they have to at least pay minimum wage. They also need to fully comply with OSHA standards. The rules in the US are likely not quite as strong as those in Europe, but the contrast with China will be dramatic.
Now, the word "internship" in the US does mean different things to different people. In some shops it basically means minimum-wage temp employee. In others it isn't unlike Google's Summer of Code where you're given real projects with
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Internships are also common in America, I thought you had abolished slavery?
Compelled Internships are not common in America (claims regarding Sea Org notwithstanding).
Do you think there are enough workers in the West to man those jobs?
Yes. There are plenty of people who are not working who would like a factory job (although not if they were forced into it at gunpoint).
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Will US involvement in China make China better? (Score:3)
~50 years of rationalizing US involvement in China has been predicated on the idea that the US will help make China a better place. Well, this is the decade of truth. Cisco got paid to build the 'Great Firewall of China', and Apple - and many others - have made fortunes exploiting cheap labor. Will the US now use it's hard won influence to make China better, or was that all bullshit?
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Will the US now use it's hard won influence to make China better, or was that all bullshit?
Or will "competitive pressure" make the US worse.
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The only involvement that the US should have with China is one that is harmful to China and beneficial to US citizens.
1989 was about the last time China could have turned things around. Now you have an entire generation of people used to slavery and opposed to freedom that are beyond repair.
Re:Will US involvement in China make China better? (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh you did know that china had been communist for 41 years prior to tianamen square? Right?
The chinese people haven't given up and the china of 2012 is better than the china of 1989. There is more civil society
in china now than there was 20 years ago. China still has a long way to go but things have changed. Do you even think
20 years ago we would have even heard about what was going on in these factories???
Cutting off china won't make china free, it will just make it isolated like we did with North Korea and Cuba.
Embargoing Cuba has worked out great...oh wait Fidel Castro is still in power.
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Uh you did know that china had been communist for 41 years prior to tianamen square? Right?
While they were communist before Tiananmen, the massacre demonstrated that China was not interested in any large scale of freedom. The most that they were interested in was courting multinationals and supplying a pliant labor pool that was/is highly resistant to upward wage pressures and worker-side freedoms.
The chinese people haven't given up and the china of 2012 is better than the china of 1989. There is more civil society
in china now than there was 20 years ago. China still has a long way to go but things have changed. Do you even think
20 years ago we would have even heard about what was going on in these factories???
The working age population of 2012 is less aspirant of freedom than the working age population of 1989. All they know is that some people tried to topple the government for something called liberty, a
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All that "exploitation" urbanized them and raised salaries to the point that their economy is almost as large as ours.
Not just Foxconn (Score:3)
The excellent documentary/drama hybrid "24 City" [wikipedia.org] (made by talented Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke) has a lot of details on this practice (at least as it existed at one time). Many of the participants talk about mandatory factory internships in high school (considered a communist obligation, apparently). You got assigned to a factory in your junior year and worked there from then on (part time at first, apparently). Then you either go to college or move on to full-time. They made it sound pretty benign. But then again, they made it sound pretty benign when the government forced families to break up too.
Apple needs to automate (Score:2)
Apple might do better to just automate the manufacturing process. Putting together things like the Sony Walkman and cell phones has been automated by others for years. Apple makes so many identical units and has so few product variants that they're the classic case for hard automation. Most of the other cell phone makers have far more product variants.
Apple, though, may no longer have in-house manufacturing expertise. They also may be out of touch with their supply chain
The UK are doing this too... (Score:5, Informative)
They're sending people on "Jobseekers Allowance" into "internships" with the likes of Tesco (our own national Wal-Mart), on the promise of gaining useful job experience which will gain them employment. So they stack shelves for the duration of their internship, which gives them literally zero marketable experience (and indeed, probably damages their prospects - who wants to hire a shelf-stacker for anything less menial?)
If they leave after a short "cooling off period", their benefits will be cut off, removing even the social safety net provided by the state. While Tesco have been recruiting unpaid interns on a voluntary basis for some years now, this recent trend is essentially state-sponsored slavery, and sounds eerily like the complicity of the Chinese local government in these Foxconn internships.
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if they had to pick up garbage off the side of the road or sweep streets or help at a city recycling plant that would be fine
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The definition of a "job" in the UK includes being paid a minimum wage.
Since you can't claim Job Seekers Allowance if you're working more than 16 hours a week, we'll assume that they are being given 16 hours a week work as interns, which means they're earning 54% of minimum wage. Again, eerily similar to Foxconn, who give their interns about half the wage of their standard factory workers.
If these interns were being put to some general social use I would be less offended by it*, but a vast, profitable corpo
It should be the other way around. (Score:2)
They don't have any other options since the private sector thinks that anything but a supplicant labor pool is too generous.
Why not make it so that the job seeker gets to choose the employer, and the employer can't refuse them? Same bargain, just with the tables turned.
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They're sending people on "Jobseekers Allowance" into "internships" with the likes of Tesco (our own national Wal-Mart), on the promise of gaining useful job experience which will gain them employment. So they stack shelves for the duration of their internship, which gives them literally zero marketable experience (and indeed, probably damages their prospects - who wants to hire a shelf-stacker for anything less menial?)
They gain the invaluable experience of actually working. That's very marketable. If two kids apply for a job, one says "I left school, sat on my fat arse and did nothing", the other says "I left school, couldn't find a decent job, so I took whatever I could get, including washing cars, stacking shelves...", which one would you hire? The one doing menial work, or the one doing nothing?
Really? (Score:3)
Vocational training, even if not directly related to the students chosen field is not only suggested by the Chinese Labor law, its nearly required to be done by universities. During the Mao era, sending students off to farms to work the fields was considered a "good" educational experience for the students, now that China has viable factories to handle the students, they are sent there.
Article 66 The State, through various means, take various measures to expand vocational training undertakings, the development of professional skills of laborers, improve the quality of workers and enhance their employment capability and work ability.
Article 67 The people's government at all levels should develop vocational training into the socio-economic development planning, and various forms of vocational training to encourage and support qualified enterprises, institutional organizations, social organizations and individuals.
Article 68 The employing units shall establish a vocational training system, the extraction and use of funds for vocational training in accordance with state regulations, according to its practical, planned way and laborers with professional training.
Fact #1 - Foxconn currently employs 1.3 MILLION people. It employed 920,000 people in 2010 when the suicides happened.
Fact #2 - The number of suicides (and attempted suicides) in a year that sparked "outrage" is 18.
Fact #3 - The suicide rate in the United States is 11.8 per 100,000 people.
Fact #4 - The suicide rate in the Peoples Republic of China is sitting at 22.2 per 100,000 people.
Fact #5 - Basic math skills, show that Foxconn enjoys a suicide rate of 2 per 100,000 people.
Don't you think that the suicide rate would be higher then the rest of China if things were actually that bad? After all its a tenth of the rest of China, and its nearly 6 times under the American suicide rate.
Fact is, currently in China, based on what I'm getting from Chinese media, and the wife's family, jobs are in a shorter supply then people who are leaving rural areas to go to work in these factories. Companies like Foxconn are well known, and people fight over the jobs.
The internships are paying at least minimum wage, as the article suggests. Foxconn on top of the salary of its employees includes free accommodations and food, which makes Foxconn a very attractive place to work as many of the employees work there simply to afford to send their income back "home" where their parents live in impoverished conditions. China is labelled a "developing" country for a reason.
Overtime in China is restricted to no more then 36 hours a month, and no more then 3 hours on any one day, overtime must be paid out at 1.5 times. Over time on weekends is automatically double time, and over time on holidays is triple time. Salaried workers like here, where you could work a 60 hour a week without any additional compensation is outright illegal.
Yes workers do start work at say 8am, and end at 8pm in China, giving them a 12 hour day, however, like is the custom in many countries (including Europe) lunch breaks in China typically involve at least 2 hours, and 4 hour lunch breaks are common. There working hours before reaching over time is however limited to 40 like most of the world. Which is similar to here, you work from 9am to 5:30pm, with a half hour unpaid lunch in many jobs or you simply get docked the half hour's pay between 9 to 5.
As for this "living minimum wage" its not a issue with Foxconn its a issue with everyone in China, which is why the Chinese have been increasing it between 15-30% per year for the last few years. The Chinese standards of living are increasing, costs are increasing due to the industrialization, and while it might not be ideal, their minimum wages have been increasing at a greater rate then any developed nation. Complaining about that, is like complaining that the 7.25$ that is minimum wage in NY is the company that employs you fault that it costs 3 times that to live in NYC. It happens everywhere
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Prisoners get housing and get paid a pittance for their labor too. And they are not allowed to say "no" either. Either work or get thrown into "the hole". Without freedom to choose it is all meaningless. It also dislocates the labor market by keeping people from going to where a shortage may be.
Duress. (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that such choice is made under duress.
Foxconn is like a slavemaster that beats you less; they still beat you like a slavemaster, but it is with precision instruments and your chains are of the highest quality. Should you wish to object, you get shot and disappeared by the government.
If they really were free, people wouldn't have any trouble speaking about Foxconn without anonymity.
Question about the quote inside.... (Score:2)
Chicago Bread LLC / Panera Bread no pay, drive (Score:3)
Chicago Bread LLC / Panera Bread no pay, drive site to site and Assist with deliveries, inventory, ordering supplies.
They want you to have drive 20-50 miles to get to some of the stores? Will they pay for that? It can cost $15-25 in gas / other car costs + tolls that can add up to about $3-4 each way?
-deliveries, inventory! a intern is not a shipping, copy, coffee boy.
Hear is old job ad for them
IT Internship
Chicago Bread LLC, dba Panera Bread, is looking for an IT Intern to help the IT team in the Chicago market. Gain real-world experience in the work force with a well-known company!
Job Responsibilities:
Support the IT Team in the maintenance of hardware, software and other systems
Must troubleshoot issues with equipment like printers, computers, servers and register repairs
Assist with deliveries, inventory, ordering supplies, laptop management and server room management
Education:
Must be in pursuit of an Associates or Bachelors degree in computer science or have an
AS or BS in IT and looking for experience in the field.
Desired skills:
Excellent communication, time management and interpersonal skills
Strong leadership/motivation skills
Positive attitude
Excellent analytical and problem solving ability
Ability to travel to cafés for support
Hours:
Part time -- 2-3 days a week or as needed
Location:
3051 Oak Grove Road
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Email resume and school schedule
Location: Downers Grove, IL
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: no pay
tell me about this some people have that BS idea (Score:2)
tell me about this some people have that BS idea that People not only need 4 CS no they need to work for free as well.
Now IT should be in a tech school with a on job part at least min wage or some kind of apprenticeship system.
Dickens Centennial (Score:2)
It seems both sad and appropriate that these conditions are revealed on the Charles Dickens Bi-Centennial. That this garbage still exists is a crime. This is where unfettered Capitalism ( not a Free Market, if labor can't say no it is not a Free Market) leads to. And the Libertarians would be more than happy to have us all enslaved by the corporations.
No different than Internships in DC (Score:2)
Blame the government, not Foxconn (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Forced internships? (Score:5, Funny)
Is this a Bill Clinton program?
Close, but no cigar.
Re:Forced internships? (Score:4, Funny)
Okay, now *that's* funny.
Re:Import tariffs (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Import tariffs (Score:4, Funny)
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Suspicious pic in the link (Score:2)
The first pic in the link ( motherboard.vice.com ) showing 3 young guys sitting/sleeping besides a concrete fence is suspicious
Caption shows "Foxconn workers in Chengdu" but those 3 young guys were not in Foxconn's uniform, nor any Foxconn identification (signboard, logo) visible
The tone of the article is also suspicious - written by someone who does not have any idea how the Chinese education system (in China) functions
If a Chinese (from China) who has no idea of the American education system writes an art
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foxconn is a 19th century factory (Score:4, Informative)
foxconn is a 19th century factory.
With the company store
On site living
overtime that exceeded the legal limit
little worker safety
workers being humiliated for messing up
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That's ridiculous. There's no reality denial in a self contained economic zone walled off by tariffs, and there's no reason whatsoever why domestic exports should increase or even exist. You're begging the question. And let's not even go into the idea that a currency's absolute numerical value somehow has a real importance to the well being of the people using it.
Import tariffs benefiting whom ? (Score:2)
Import tariffs?
Benefiting the interns?
Or enabling the politicians to better lining up their pockets?
Re:oh the humanity! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:oh the humanity! (Score:4, Insightful)
... but it isn't apple to blame
Correct. Their shareholders deserve the blame. Apple's just a corporation. Own Apple stock? You're a slaver. Buy Apple products? You enrich slave owners. FOAD.
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Re:oh the humanity! (Score:5, Insightful)
but it isn't apple to blame
I disagree. Apple is contracting with Foxconn to churn out millions of iDevices. Regardless of what other Silicon Valley companies are doing, Apple is the one that is dealing with FoxConn. If they think that the workers deserve better treatment, they have it in their power to see that their demands are met; if they aren't, then they can contract with someone who will. "I'm just following the status quo," is a poor defense.
I work for a company that deals with a lot of contractors. If a contractor isn't living up to our expectations (usually safety related), we find a new company to do that work. If they're not living up to our standards, they don't come on our site. Our safety numbers reflect this. (I think our bottom line benefits, too, but those numbers are a little trickier to pin down.)
I think that a company's handling of contractors reflects their values. Apple (and I guess the rest of Silicon Valley) values money more than good working conditions.
Re:oh the humanity! (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure what to think of this story, but I was surprised when I spoke to two mainland Chinese co-workers about the issue of worker conditions in China. Essentially they said that only Apple has the power to do anything about this issue. The Chinese government won't do anything, Foxconn and other manufacturers won't do anything, the Chinese workers are too powerless to do anything. Only Apple has what they phrased as "moral standing". The Chinese government and Foxconn are viewed as amoral.
I also read an interesting article the other day about the planned inspections. The author, a person with experience in doing inspections, says the currently planned third-party inspections won't work. He suggested instead Apple place an employee representative on-site permanently ensure compliance.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Foxconn-Inspections-Are-Good-PR-but-Apple-Needs-to-Protect-Workers-407229/1/ [eweek.com]
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Apple are to blame, as well as Apple's customers.
Apple are spending billions to avoid Samsung as a supplier simply because Samsung are competing successfully against their products, however Apple are doing nothing about Foxconn. There are other factories in china that do comply with forieng labour laws, there are other nations such as Thailand or the Philippines
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* "Liu had traveled hundreds of miles for a chance to get hands-on experience working for China’s leading electronics maker."
* "Liu’s internship — which he landed through a labor placement firm in the nearby city of Guangzhou — would have included housing, food, and a small stipend estimated to be about half the sala
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WOW! A bit harsh. How do you know what his mental state was when he killed himself?
And just so you know mental states can change very rapidly. It is possible that there was a lot going on that will never be known. How much of it was Foxconn's fault is what the real concern is. I know personally that high stress environments do not add to one's mental well being. I had a job that had what I would consider unreasonable demands, and if I was faced with the prospect of ruining my life and quitting(like wa
Re:oh the humanity! (Score:5, Informative)
You read this part, right?
The Henan provincial government declared that 100,000 vocational and university students would be sent on three-month internships at Foxconn’s Shenzhen plants.
At one vocational school in Zhengzhou, wrote Hu Yinan, students were informed of the government’s requirement after the summer semester had begun, and that “all those who refuse would have to drop out.”
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Bloody hell, and they call themselves communists? That's fascist if I've ever seen it.
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Re:oh the humanity! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:oh the humanity! (Score:5, Insightful)
You totally miss the educational/motivational part of such internships !
Once the students have worked during 3 months in these factories, they'll learn the following values:
1) if you fail your studies, that's where you'll work until the end of your life
2) if you succeed in your studies, you'll probably want to change the future working conditions in China.
3) if you excel in your studies, you'll be the next bosses, and these are good lessons on how to exploit people.
These are valuable work and life skills !
workers saflty / labol laws apply to temps IRS (Score:3)
workers saflty / labol laws apply to temps also in some cases the IRS has ruled the temps to be full employees in some cases.
* your internship turns out to be menial. In the US it's filing papers, fetching coffee. Same deal that is breaking the law.
* vocational students must do internships as part of their education. But the VOC part is doing a real job part of the class load not being a copy / coffee boy.
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In the U.S. the internship at least pretends to be related to your studies. Journalism majors don't end up assembling cars in Detroit. If they end up as coffee gofers, they at least bring that coffee to journalists and get a chance to see how journalism works in the real world while they're at it.
In the U.S., interns aren't 'exempt' from workplace safety or from compensation if they are injured. Typically this means that the employer bends over backwards to keep them away from anything more hazardous than a
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I haven't bought one made in an Asian sweatshop and I wasn't even trying to be honest. My two Treos were made in Canada and my N900's made in South Korea.