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Originally Posted by TheVillagesAV.com
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That story was found to be exaggerated and more than a bit out of context. Data shows that suicide attempts at Foxconn were at a level lower then that of the general population in the Shenzhen are and China in general. They put up the nets in response to so called journalist doing hatchet jobs on the company.
I've lived in a third world country in Asia and unless you been there, you can never understand what life is like for a lot of people. American manufacturers like Foxconn give a lot of them a better life.
What the big expose on Foxconn didn't show is what life was like for so many of their employees prior to being hired to work there. Their lives are improved by leaps and bounds being employed by Foxconn. They have three meals a day and a clean warm place to sleep. Without companies like this, many of these kids would end up as beggars or prostitutes working for Mafia types organizations in these countries.
People in Shenzhen line up by the thousands for the opportunity to work for Foxconn and they know what they are in for.
Where I lived, it was not uncommon for people to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year. There are no "rest days" as they call them. No vacations and no sick days. You just show up for work every day, give all you money to you parents and go home and sleep in a 10'X20' "house" with your parents and four or five siblings. And that's if your lucky to get a real job. Like I say, for the rest it's out in the streets begging or worse until you get some kind of disease that kills you or some gangster kills you because your not bringing in enough.
Many of the girls go to the big cities in hopes of finding employment and become "bar girls". There, they dance in a nightclub at night and if they're lucky some rich tourist will pay their "bar fine" and take them home for the night for which they might get some kind of small bonus or tip. If they don't get taken home, they return to the "accommodations" provided by the nightclub. These generally consist of a 12'X12" cement block room in which twelve or more of these girls sleep together.
There are a lot more suicides in third world Asian countries than in other areas of the world. These people are brought up with the idea that if they get a job, it is their responsibility to provide for their families for the rest of their lives. This places a huge amount of pressure on these kids and many think of themselves as failures is they don't provide enough. They will often sacrifice themselves in order to provide for their families. For some the pressure become too much and they sadly end their own lives.
They will do anything to provide for their families. They beg or dance in clubs. They take jobs as masseuses offering "extra service". As long as they get a meal every day and a small amount of money to send back home they will keep going.
The conditions at Foxconn may seem outrageous to us, are the best that many of these people can hope for. Most employees there are very happy and consider themselves lucky to have been selected to be hired.
It's easy for an American investigative journalist to go over to a third world country and do a story by interviewing a few disgruntled employees and show working conditions to millions of Americans who really don't understand the alternative when unemployment exceeds 50% in a country and where the overpopulation is rampant. You really have to go there and visit with some of these people and look into the eyes of a teenage girl who is begging you for money to feed her hungry baby to understand. You have to talk to people that work 12 hours a day 365 days a year to get a grasp on what actually goes on in the rest of the world. You just can't compare to anything that we know here.
And if you don't think that this same kind of thing goes on in this country, get to know some of the waitresses in your local Chinese buffet. Many of these kids answer ads in their home country that offer opportunities in America. Often, they are signed to lengthy contracts where their family is given a large amount of money, perhaps as much a $35,000. The waitress then works for tips only and is given three meals a day and accommodations by the restaurant. Again these accommodations might consist of a one bedroom apartment where the entire staff sleeps. They get to keep their tips if they are in cash, but often the restaurant will keep any tips added on to a credit card.
These kids usually work for five to ten years before they have paid off the money that was given to their families. Because the restaurant doesn't want to be hassled by our government, they usually schedule a few days off per month.
But again, this is often better than any alternative that they can find in their own country.