The Chinese Are Dying To Make Your IPad

Welcome to China, where life is cheap and they literally work their labor to death to produce goods for Western consumption.

No respite for troubled Foxconn after fresh suicide bid

THE TRAGIC saga of young people taking their own lives at the Foxconn electronics factory goes on, after a 25-year-old employee surnamed Chen tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists.

The Hunan native, who had been working at Foxconn since March, received medical attention in time to save his life.

Mr Chen’s attempted suicide came after a 23-year-old migrant worker from the far western province of Gansu died after jumping from the seventh-floor balcony of his dormitory, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

The tragic events are making people thinking about the real cost of their iPads, laptops and mobile phones.

There have been 10 deaths out of 13 suicide attempts at the plant, which employs over 300,000 people, since January, and Foxconn’s main clients, fearful of the fallout from the suicide crisis, are asking why this is happening.

Both Dell and Hewlett-Packard have said they were looking into conditions at Foxconn, one day after Apple said it was upset by the deaths and was also investigating the situation.

Apple said it is “deeply committed to ensuring that conditions throughout our supply chain are safe and workers are treated with respect and dignity.” The suicide crisis worsened just hours after chief executive Terry Guo personally showed journalists around the plant in a bid to repair the company’s image, which has been badly hit by the wave of suicides.

See also:
13th Foxconn worker reportedly attempts suicide
Still more Foxconn jumpers, including a double suicide?
The Foxconn Suicides
Tenth apparent suicide at Foxconn iPhone factory in China
Two more suicide bids at Apple factory
Foxconn suicide sparks China probe
IPhones and suicides
Foxconn woes have U.S. ripple effects
Another Suicide Hits Foxconn
Foxconn sees 12th Jumper and 10th suicide
The Underside of Apple’s Chinese Manufacturing
Foxconn Technology Group

As much as we enjoy our cheap consumer electronics, it seems that the Chinese laborers inversely don’t enjoy assembling them. Are the cost savings worth the lives lost and the human misery inflicted?

/tolerable Chinese labor conditions, is there an app for that?