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Chinese College Students Reportedly Forced to Build Apple's New iPhone 5

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News Posted: Fri, Sep 7 2012 9:49 AM
Reports are surfacing once again of poor and/or questionable working conditions at a Foxconn (Hon Hai Precision) plant in China where Apple devices are being built. The latest revolves around thousands of local college students being forced to work long shifts putting together iPhone 5 devices rather than attending class.

Foxconn is reportedly short on workers to meet expected demand for Apple's upcoming iPhone 5 smartphone, which will be announced on September 12 and likely start shipping later in the month or in October at the latest. Classes have reportedly been suspended at nearby institutions so that students can pick up the slack.

Foxconn Building

The issue appears to have gained attention when a female student at the Huaiyin Insititute of Technology wrote in an online post that 200 students from her school had been driven to Foxconn's factory, but had to pay hundreds of yuan for food and accommodation.

According to a local newspaper, her post prompted students from at least five other colleges in the area to chime in with similar accounts of what's been going on. One student said that Foxconn was in desperate need of 10,000 workers, while another complained of having to work 12 hour shifts.

Apparently authorities in the area ordered nearby schools to suspend operations and send their students to the plant. The students usually go along with the flow for "fear of revenge" and not being allowed to graduate, a local paper reports.
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JOMA replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 10:32 AM

If this is true, massive fines and firing of the management are the only way they can put a stop to this.

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CDeeter replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 11:22 AM

Horrifying that this can take place, apparently with local gov support. Subjugating students into forced labor is just plain evil. WTF!

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realneil replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 12:57 PM

CDeeter:

Horrifying that this can take place, apparently with local gov support. Subjugating students into forced labor is just plain evil. WTF!

China isn't known for their respect of human rights,.................I'm glad that I don't live there.

 

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fat78 replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 1:28 PM

Foxconn manufactures the biggest percentage of electronics in the world. It is pretty much a big cash cow for china, and China isn't going to do anything about foxconn if it means losing profit, and most people will just get upset for a little bit until they realize they rather have lower costing electronics.

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thunderdan602 replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 2:21 PM

Good ol communism. Lol. Do it or else.

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4L1G8R replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 3:28 PM

Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLg9fYM9joU (question @Apple)

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RiCoFrost replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 4:58 PM

All you Apple fans support SLAVE LABOR!!!! you bad bad people you....

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fat78 replied on Fri, Sep 7 2012 6:49 PM

Apple isnt the only company who uses foxconn. Good chance that something in your house is from foxconn, RiCofrost,

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mhenriday replied on Sat, Sep 8 2012 4:24 AM

This has very little to do with communism, thunderdan602, but rather more with unrestricted capitalism - Guo Taiming (aka Terry Gou), the founder and CEO of Hon Hai (Foxconn) is from Taiwan and (in)famous for asking the director of the Taibei zoo for advice on how to deal with the company's over a million workers, who gave him «a headache». In some ways, the event described here shows progress - the reason that Foxconn was forced to resort to these methods is because, as Paul's article notes, the company is greatly understaffed - the economic situation for ordinary people in China seems to be improving and migrant workers are no longer willing to accept extremely low pay and harsh working conditions in Foxconn factories in order to escape the grinding poverty of the countryside. Ordering students from local technical colleges into the factories is hardly a long-term solution and even in the short term, i e, ahead of the launching of a new Apple product, it's no longer working - witness the protests and the fact that the story has become widely known in China and abroad. China is changing fast - perhaps faster than some abroad would like....

Henri

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PurpleHope replied on Fri, Mar 22 2013 1:07 PM

They are too good for this! Really now.. How can you blame them? It's what they do in their spare time! We should all congratulate them. Them networking is awesome. We can all see what they get to do.

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