Apple's Steve Jobs defends conditions at Foxconn

Steve Jobs on Foxconn

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs has spoken out for the first time about the spate of suicides that have occurred at Foxconn, the Chinese plant where numerous components of Apple products are produced. Mr. Jobs has defended working conditions at the plant in Shenzhen and said that the rate of suicides was lower than the overall suicide rate for the United States.

12 of the 400,000 Foxconn employees have killed themselves at the factory since the beginning of this year, and at least four more workers have attempted to commit suicide. Another 20 employees are said to have been stopped by the company before they had they had the chance to take their lives.

Mr. Jobs, speaking to delegates at the D8 technology conference in California, acknowledged that the situation is "troubling" but denied claims that workers at the Foxconn plant are being mistreated.

"We look at everything at these companies, and I can tell you a few things that we know: Foxconn is not a sweatshop" Mr. Jobs said. "It's a factory, but, my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory it's pretty nice."

Suicide rates at Foxconn and in the US

Mr. Jobs told delegates: "[Foxconn have] had some suicides and attempted suicides. They have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the US rate is, but it's still troubling."

According to the World Health Organization, the average annual suicide rate in the United States is 11.1 people per 100,000 of the population. The most recent overall US suicide statistics available are from 2005.

However, the United States Department of Labor has released a National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries more recently containing the rates of death within US workplaces. The Census revealed that in 2007 there were 196 workplace suicides and this number rose to 251 cases in 2008. The highest percentage of US workers who committed suicide at work were found to be in managerial positions.

Corporate and social responsibility

People working at Foxconn manufacture products for Dell and Hewlett Packard as well as Apple. All of these companies say that they are now investigating the plant.

"We are all over this," said Mr. Jobs and said that Apple takes its corporate and social responsibility very seriously. 

Mr. Jobs also drew parallels between Foxconn and his hometown, Palo Alto, where six young people have recently taken their own lives. "We had this in my hometown of Palo Alto," said Mr. Jobs: "Copy cat suicides. We're over there trying to understand this. It's a difficult situation."

All of the people in Palo Alto who committed suicide were local students who attended Gunn High School.

Labor unions speak out

Li Qiang, executive director of New York-based China Labor Watch, has claimed that Foxconn is a sweatshop and, in a recent statement, said that the factory "tramples" workers' personal values for the sake of efficiency. The report also stated that suicides amongst Chinese factory workers employed in the industrial south have more than doubled this year, compared with suicide numbers in 2009.

An undercover investigation into the working conditions at Foxconn also claimed that workers were being pushed to breaking point in the factory's attempts to keep up with the huge volume of orders. Zhu Guangbing, who organized the investigation said that the factory has struggled after losing tens of thousands of workers during the global financial crisis and was struggling to keep up with demand for products such as Apple's incredibly sought-after iPad.

"The management [at Foxconn] is poor," said Mr. Zhu. "Hundreds of people work in the workshops but they are not allowed to talk to each other. If you talk, you get a black mark in your record and you get shouted at by your manager. You can also be fined."

Foxconn's future

According to the China Daily Newspaper, "Foxconn may not be a sweatshop in the sense that it physically abuses its employees or forces them to work extra hours." However, continued the editorial, "That does not mean it is showing enough humanitarian concern for its employees. And, neither does it imply that it is doing enough to foster a corporate culture that helps employees strike a healthier work-life balance."

Mr. Zhu also said that during the investigation he conducted at Foxconn, all of the workers he spoke to said they never had any time to even go and see the facilities Mr. Jobs referred to; let alone use them.

"It's a difficult situation" Mr. Jobs told delegates at the Californian conference. "We're trying to understand right now, before we go in and say we know the solution."

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