Foxconn workers asked to sign anti-suicide pledge

How difficult is it to spend your days in a factory building iPhones, surrounded by people just like you? Too difficult for some people apparently. As we all know, working at Foxconn isn’t the best job in the world, in fact it’s probably something that even the biggest Apple fanboy (or girl) wouldn’t dream of doing – despite the chance to be surrounded by Apple products all day long, while you get firsthand access to their latest designs. Unfortunately, life is life and people have to make a living somehow, and Foxconn gives people jobs they can carry out to survive. Being paid meager wages while working long hours is enough to drive quite a number of workers suicidal and suicides usually put the employers in sticky situations. But it looks like Foxconn has had enough of that.

It has been reported that Foxconn has been making its workers sign pledges that basically waive Foxconn of all responsibility if they do decide to commit suicide. Apparently this is what the letter (after translation) says:

In the event of non-accidental injuries (including suicide, self mutilation, etc.), I agree that the company has acted properly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, and will not sue the company, bring excessive demands, take drastic actions that would damage the company’s reputation or cause trouble that would hurt normal operations.

While it’s true that a company shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of its employees, do you think that Foxconn could have dealt with the whole issue differently instead of just putting themselves out of the picture? The letter sure makes it sound like they aren’t too concerned about their workers at all.

George Wong
Categories: Apple
Tags: Apple Inc, foxconn, iOS, iPad, iPhone, suicide