Xbox 360 Factory Workers Threaten Mass Suicide

The Wooster

King Snap
Jul 15, 2008
15,305
0
0
Xbox 360 Factory Workers Threaten Mass Suicide


Over 300 former employees of a Foxconn Xbox 360 manufacturing plant in China threatened to commit mass suicide over missing compensation.

According to Chinese anti-government website, China Jasmine Revolution, the former employees at the plant in Wuhan, China, threatened to throw themselves off a rooftop, apparently after Foxconn refused to pay them severance compensation.

On January 2nd the workers asked Foxconn for a raise. The company refused to increase their pay, but allegedly told the workers they could quit, and would receive compensation for doing so. The majority of the workers chose to quit, but the agreement was apparently terminated soon after, and the promised compensation never arrived.

Fortunately, the situation was defused by the mayor of Wuhan, who managed to talk the enraged workers down.

Foxconn made the headlines throughout 2010 and 2011 due to a series of suicides amongst its workforce, prompting an investigation into the working conditions at its massive, city-sized plants [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101014-Suicides-Spur-Nintendo-Sony-and-Others-to-Investigate-Foxconn]. Foxconn reportedly required employees to sign an agreement stating they wouldn't try to off themselves, then finally gave up altogether and decided to replace the workers with robots. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.304344-Foxconn-Replacing-Workers-With-Robots]

When asked for comment about the suicide threats, Microsoft responded with the following:

"Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue. We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge. Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy."

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5874706/report-mass-suicide-threats-at-xbox-360-plant]


Permalink
 
Dec 14, 2009
15,526
0
0
"Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue. We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge. Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy."

Obligatory arse covering.

It really annoys me when people have the 'corporations are evil, fight the power' attitude, but damn, if the corporations don't make it hard for me sometimes.
 

The Random One

New member
May 29, 2008
3,310
0
0
Daystar Clarion said:
It really annoys me when people have the 'corporations are evil, fight the power' attitude, but damn, if the corporations don't make it hard for me sometimes.
Corporations aren't evil, just amoral. You can't justify to a corporation (board of directors) not manufacturing your product in China, where you can get similar quality for far lower costs, even though everyone know those lower costs are because workers have almost no rights and certainly no way to get more out there.
 

Thyunda

New member
May 4, 2009
2,955
0
0
I love how Microsoft completely denies allowing this to happen. If they really did keep tabs on all of their manufacturers, they'd have done something about it, and not be 'investigating' it. It would be nice if they just turned around and said,
"Well shit. We should probably pay more attention this time."
 

Ninjat_126

New member
Nov 19, 2010
775
0
0
You know you're not paying enough attention to human rights when your workers threaten mass suicide. That's right boys and girls, unless they get the money you're refusing to pay them, they have nothing to live for. Unless they were bluffing.

The question is, is it nicer to move your company's factories out of China and let the workers out of these horrible conditions, or keep the factories there and let them keep their jobs?
 

Torrasque

New member
Aug 6, 2010
3,441
0
0
Am I a bad person for reading through this and laughing?
What really made me laugh was this line:
Foxconn reportedly required employees to sign an agreement stating they wouldn't try to off themselves, then finally gave up altogether and decided to replace the workers with robots.
"Employees killing themselves? Well damn. We could increase their pay by a small amount and be seen as non-douchebags OR replace them with robots. ROBOTS IT IS! Make sure you use the finest steel and titanium for those robots now! Don't want them to break down in the middle of manufacturing!"

This is the icing on the cake though:
"Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue. We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge. Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy."
Non-robotic translation: "Oh shit... Uhh... Well, this situation really sucks. We're going to pretend to throw money at it so people don't demonize us more than they already have and hope that this situation fixes itself because we can't be assed to fix it in a humane way"

Oh Microsoft, how you make me lol
 

drkchmst

New member
Mar 28, 2010
218
0
0
Soooo...is the response time for this supposed to be similar to customer support response times? Hours at best days on "average" or months? It's ok we can wait for the report...
 

Orange12345

New member
Aug 11, 2011
458
0
0
Wait so let me get this straight, Microsoft kept tabs on the working conditions of their outsourced workers and did absolutely nothing to change the abuse that was going on (mass suicide of your employees seems pretty hard to miss if you "monitor working conditions closely").

This has obviously been going on for quite some time and I think Microsoft really screwed themselves with their statement as it basically admits that they knew and did nothing
 

sunburst

Media Snob
Mar 19, 2010
666
0
0
Orange12345 said:
Wait so let me get this straight, Microsoft kept tabs on the working conditions of their outsourced workers and did absolutely nothing to change the abuse that was going on (mass suicide of your employees seems pretty hard to miss if you "monitor working conditions closely").

This has obviously been going on for quite some time and I think Microsoft really screwed themselves with their statement as it basically admits that they knew and did nothing
The real answer to this puzzle is that they don't monitor the working conditions of their vendors but needed a standard "empathetic" statement. Even so, they still undoubtedly had a vague idea what was occurring because every corporation knows what it's like working in those factories. Production costs are low because employees are underpaid and overworked, and approximately zero people were surprised by that discovery.
 

Scrustle

New member
Apr 30, 2011
2,031
0
0
I would gladly pay more for an Xbox (maybe up to £50 more) if it meant that the people who made it didn't want to kill themselves because of poor working conditions and low pay.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
Orange12345 said:
Wait so let me get this straight, Microsoft kept tabs on the working conditions of their outsourced workers and did absolutely nothing to change the abuse that was going on (mass suicide of your employees seems pretty hard to miss if you "monitor working conditions closely").

This has obviously been going on for quite some time and I think Microsoft really screwed themselves with their statement as it basically admits that they knew and did nothing
Well, they are operating a factory in China, simply by doing this given how (in)famous these issues are there you can't take what they are saying seriously. China's behaviors including international patents, sweatshop labour, and other trade practices are huge, international issues, any company doing continueing to do business with them right now can't exactly plead ignorance. It's sort of like saying "oh wow, I didn't know the KKK was a racist organization".

That said, when you consider the conditions for workers in China it puts things like their recent modular construction successes into a new perspective:

http://www.geekosystem.com/building-time-lapse/

Basically China has been astoundeding the world recently by erecting buildings in record time, they do this by constructing the building in sections and then transporting the building to the site and assembling it. Despite the claims, it's unknown how sturdy these constructions will be in the long term, it's also about the erection, not total contruction time for all the pieces.

As some point have pointed out, outside of the mainstream media, knowing Chinese working conditions this seems almost like the new face of pyramid construction with modular building sections being the new giant stone blocks.

The point here is that for all the criticisms of China, people keep lavishing praise upon the Chinese, and Microsoft certainly isn't the only company to be tied to some really shady business dealings in exploiting horrific chinese working conditions for it's own benefit. If we keep giving encouragement, and just letting these things go, nothing is going to change.

In no way has working condition stories like this impacted the praise from the mainstream media China has gotten for it's engineering successes (which seem to avoid looking too closely into the claims). What's more we are also responsible because I doubt this news is going to even slightly hurt the success of the X-Box. On top of that I don't think the US goverment is going to seriously adjust laws or go after Microsoft as being complicit in this despite the horrible stench wafting off of it. Indeed the big arguement is probably going to be that they technically didn't do anything criminal... without anymore effort to make sure that this behavior becomes criminal in the future if anyone else is caught in a situation like this, since we haven't exactly seen CEOS and Board-sitting Shareholders heading to prison after countless similar cases in the past.

Heck, while it wasn't new then I can think as far back as the situation with Kathy Lee Gifford having her garmets crafted in overseas Sweatshops (I can't remember where) she pleaded ignorant, got away with it virtually unscathed, and as you can see it hasn't prevent anyone else from doing it.
 

Micalas

New member
Mar 5, 2011
793
0
0
It's gonna start raining men. It's raining men. Hallelujah it's raining men, Amen It's raining men. Hallelujah it's raining men...

I agree with what another poster said. Stop working with Foxconn.
 

Orange12345

New member
Aug 11, 2011
458
0
0
sunburst said:
Orange12345 said:
Wait so let me get this straight, Microsoft kept tabs on the working conditions of their outsourced workers and did absolutely nothing to change the abuse that was going on (mass suicide of your employees seems pretty hard to miss if you "monitor working conditions closely").

This has obviously been going on for quite some time and I think Microsoft really screwed themselves with their statement as it basically admits that they knew and did nothing
The real answer to this puzzle is that they don't monitor the working conditions of their vendors but needed a standard "empathetic" statement. Even so, they still undoubtedly had a vague idea what was occurring because every corporation knows what it's like working in those factories. Production costs are low because employees are underpaid and overworked, and approximately zero people were surprised by that discovery.
I was trying to be a touch sarcastic (guess it didn't get across well :p) obviously we all "know" that large companies like these know what really happens in their sweatshops, my point was that if we take Microsoft's statement as truth then they were monitoring the working conditions, saw the problems (and there is no way they could have NOT noticed the problems) and did absolutely NOTHING to help or change things.

Admitting you knew and did nothing is a pretty shitty defense
 

Sixcess

New member
Feb 27, 2010
2,719
0
0
Replacing the staff with robots, eh?

Well, given the working conditions, at least we know now where the robot revolution will begin.
 

CatsAttackAgain

New member
Jul 14, 2010
98
0
0
I feel like an asshole for it but I literally lol'd when I saw the headline. Seriously though, is it cheaper to have robots run the plant? Couldn't they just clean up and start paying people?
 

-Dragmire-

King over my mind
Mar 29, 2011
2,821
0
0
It's amazing to me that any corporation that starts its' name with 'Fox' seems to have a high tendency to piss people off.
[sub][sub]Could be the exception and not the rule though...[/sub][/sub]


OT: Is there no competition to Foxconn that companies like Microsoft can switch to? You'd think the PR hit will outweigh the cheapness of Foxconn's production eventually.