After last week 9th death (in 2010) of a Foxconn employee, the relationship between clients like Apple ,HP and others with Foxconn, a contract manufacturer that builds all kinds of devices for established brands, has become untenable from a PR perspective. So far, many worker groups believe that the suicides are tied to harsh working conditions.
In the past, clients have looked into it, butthis never led into any sort of remarkable action. Foxconn is just very good at building quality stuff for cheap, and they do add real value to their clients. That said, this relationship is starting to be a little counter-productive. For the sake of its clients (and for its own sake), Foxconn has talked about raising the salaries by as much as 20%, but today’s rumor is that Apple itself will pay Foxconn employees who work on its product (starting with the iPad), a small portion of the profits. This would be a first.
First, we need to know if that’s true. From therelet’s see whatwill to happen on the ground. Secondly: what about those who don’t work on Apple products? Are Foxconn employees going to “battle” to be moved to the “premium” production line? Foxconn has more than 400,000 workers in Shenzen, China.
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