After the news last week that Foxconn employees were arrested for selling Apple components that they had stolen from the factory - it has been revealed that workers are expected to sign 'no suicide' pledges as part of their working agreement.
Over the last few years many commentators and journalists have been concerned with conditions within the plant after a dozen workers committed suicide at Chengdu and Shenzhen
It is being reported that the company forced staff to make written promises not to commit suicide after a spate of incidents over the last 16 months.
The revelation is the latest in a series of concerns about the treatment of workers at Foxconn plants, staff are expected to do 12 hour shifts, 98 hours over time a month and are expected to live work dormitories for a paltry $5 dollar a day wage.
The Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and the human rights group Students And Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) have accused Foxconn of treating workers like machines.
The company took the problem so seriously that they even brought in religious monks to try and exorcise evil spirits which they believed led to the suicides, yeah because that’s going to work, they should be addressing the working conditions that were really to blame.
Whether it’s Foxconn fault or the goverment in China that aren’t give proper rights to their workers is unclear, but the world is watching Foxconn very carefully, I certainly wouldn’t want any Apple products if people had committed suicide to make them.
Despite its lucrative deals with Apple and other top technology firms, incredibly Foxconn made a loss of $218 million in 2010, with a 10 per cent wage increase to its beleagured staff is a likely contributing factor.