Three new suicides at Foxconn China factory

[Per Levy]

BEIJING: Three Foxconn (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Foxconn) workers have committed suicide at a factory in China in the past three weeks, a labour rights group said Saturday.

All three jumped to their deaths at a plant in the central city of Zhengzhou (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Zhengzhou) run by the Taiwanese electronics giant.

A 30-year-old married man killed himself on Tuesday following the similar deaths of a 23-year-old woman on April 27 and a 24-year-old man three days earlier, media reports said.

"The reasons for these building jumpings are unclear," the New York-based China Labor Watch (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/China-Labor-Watch) rights group said in a statement.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international-business/three-new-suicides-at-foxconn-china-factory-report/articleshow/20121811.cms

[BAMslam15]

I really feel bad that my iphone contributed to these deaths :( China really needs to step up its protection of worker's rights; they need something like the US with OSHA and improve working conditions for all factory workers. In fact, this wouldn't have happened had the US not outsourced these jobs to these countries just to save money for the plutocratic regime we're caught up in

[Sea]

"The reasons for these building jumpings are unclear"To say something like that in light of these lost lives is downright disgusting. It's perfectly clear.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

Horrific and disgusting. To remember that I contribute to this nearly every time I buy something off a shelf sickens me:(. These people are the bourgeosie's field slaves; we're their house servants. We all have to unite together, but we still have to do everything we can to help those less fortunate than us. Everybody on this forum has it much, much better than all of these people.

[Goblin]

iPhones (including my own), are literally made of blood, sweat and tears...

[Comrade Nasser]

iPhones aren't all that cool. I don't have one and I don't need one. Way overrated and not worth the lives of innocent people to make a shitty phone that will break when it hits the ground.

[helot]

It's not just iPhones. There's seldom an electrical device that isn't made in equally horrendous conditions.

I dont share the sentiment that "China really needs to step up its protection of worker's rights" like somehow any rights we have are given to us through the goodwill of governments or them being codified into statutes guarantees their existence, no they're forced on them from without through the fear of workers' strength. Thus in the absense of being able to provide any concrete solidarity to workers in China i can only hope they step up their struggles.




btw, how the hell do you people afford iPhones? They cost a fuckton.

[Fourth Internationalist]

And yet China is supposedly "socialist"! :cursing:

[Skyhilist]

Man you guys are making me feel bad for also having an iPhone (which I should). It's really unfortunate though how difficult it is to live without buying any products that were produced through slave labor, and even more unfortunate for the workers overseas.

What I don't understand is that if they're killing themselves en masse, they obviously are aware that things are pretty damn fucked up for them... So what exactly is preventing revolution?

[helot]

And yet China is supposedly "socialist"! :cursing:

Well anyone that claims it is is either trying to trick people or they fail at politics 101: distinguishing between rhetoric and reality.

[Deity]

Don't feel bad that your phone was produced in these factories; it truly isn't your fault. To attempt to purchase things only made in what we would consider fair working conditions could turn out to be a daunting and pricey task.

Being angry about this is however perfectly reasonable. I am not happy that my shoes, phone, shirt, tv, and computer are all made by people who are treated as god damn slaves. Things like this are what fuel my revolutionary fire: people working such shit jobs they end up taking there own lives as an escape.

[Decolonize The Left]

Man you guys are making me feel bad for also having an iPhone (which I should). It's really unfortunate though how difficult it is to live without buying any products that were produced through slave labor, and even more unfortunate for the workers overseas.

What I don't understand is that if they're killing themselves en masse, they obviously are aware that things are pretty damn fucked up for them... So what exactly is preventing revolution?

You shouldn't feel bad for having an iphone, or any consumer durable for that matter. I'll bet you that the workers who jumped out the windows would want iphones if they could afford them - don't you think?

You, the consumer who is also the proletariat, are not to blame for this. The capitalist system is to blame because it establishes the framework through which individual human beings are commodified and stripped of their humanity, left to no resort but to kill themselves in an effort to draw attention to these conditions and end their suffering.

[Dropdead]

And yet China is supposedly "socialist"! :cursing:

By name only of course.

[Futility Personified]

Ethical purchasing is a liberal idea, purchasing power is bargaining with the scraps off the table we're given, not actually utilizing our potential to do something, be it striking, occupying or setting Steve Job's rotten corpse on fire and throwing it out of a window.

It's sad that apple products are so fetishised when people are basically being murdered by misery to make them. They're overrated pieces of horseshite anyway, why not get a cheaper samsung or something that does the same stuff for half the price?

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Well anyone that claims it is is either trying to trick people or they fail at politics 101: distinguishing between rhetoric and reality.

From my experience, its usually a combination of both.

[Comrade #138672]

Don't blame the consumers. Blame the Capitalists.