Yep, America can now become China, Walmart would be happy. Fair wages you say, balderdash corporatists say. Americans need to work like Third world slaves - come on people get with it - Apple stock needs you. And Americans are strong they won't kill themselves!
"...Chinese bloggers began referring to the Shenzhen plant as the "Foxconn Suicide Express." In its investigation of conditions at Longhua and other plants making Apple products, SACOM concluded that many of those who committed suicide were exhausted, overworked, verbally and physically abused by supervisors, or publicly humiliated when they failed to meet their production quotas. SACOM reports tell the story of some of these young victims:
• Hou, a nineteen-year-old woman from Hunan province, hanged herself in the toilet of her dorm room on June 18, 2007, shortly a&er she had assured her parents that she would soon be coming home.
• Sun, a twenty-five-year-old college graduate from Yunnan province, jumped to his death from his twelfth-floor room on July 16, 2009, after he was allegedly blamed for losing a prototype for a new iPhone. According to SACOM, Sun was detained by security officers, placed in "solitary confinement," subjected to "psychological pressures," and allegedly beaten. In a final chat with friends shortly before he killed himself, he described the relief he felt in planning to take his own life: "Thinking that I won't be bullied tomorrow, won't have to be the scapegoat, I feel much better."
• After Feng, a twenty-three-year-old college graduate, jumped to his death from his fourteenth-floor room on January 16, 2009, police found a suicide note: "Too much work pressure; unstable emotions."
• Ma, a nineteen-year-old native of Henan province, was found dead near a stairway of his dormitory on January 23, 2010. An autopsy concluded that he had fallen to his death. His sisters later insisted that their brother died from a beating he had suffered after he accidentally damaged equipment at work.
After a rash of suicides at the Foxconn plant in early 2010, Foxconn took action: it strung nets around the dorms to catch any workers who might try to kill themselves by jumping. It also sealed balcony doors and barred access to roofs. Workers were reportedly urged to sign a statement promising not to kill themselves and to "treasure their lives." Apple said later in a public report on "supplier responsibility') issued to shareholders that it was "disturbed and deeply saddened to learn that factory workers were taking their own lives" and pledged to take steps "to help prevent further tragedies."" from p 93-94 'The Betrayal of the American Dream' Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele
Foxconn Said to Use Forced Student Labor to Make iPhones
"Roosevelt did not bother with economic arguments when it came to hours and wages. He offered a simple framework, both moral and patriotic. “A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy,” he proclaimed, “can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers’ wages or stretching workers’ hours.” That is as true today as it was then."
Opinion | The Future of Fair Labor
UNION THUGS Destroy & Trample AFP Tent – Rough Up Conservatives in Lansing
'Right to Work' for Less
"With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed." Clarence Darrow
"Corporate propaganda directed outwards, that is, to the public at large, has two main objectives: to identify the free enterprise system in popular consciousness with every cherished value, and to identify interventionist governments and strong unions (the only agencies capable of checking a complete domination of society by corporations) with tyranny, oppression and even subversion. The techniques used to achieve these results are variously called 'public relations', 'corporate communications' and 'economic education'." Alex Carey 'Taking the Risk out of Democracy' [see also
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