News has just come out that an employee of one of Apple’s contractors has committed suicide after being treated poorly. In fact very unfairly.
Sun Danyong apparently lept to his death because he was afraid of what his bosses would do to him after having misplaced a prototype iphone. Now this in itself may seem like a freak coincidence, perhaps the the acts of a mentally disturbed man but if you look at the events leading up to and surrounding his death you get a very different picture.
After noticing that a phone was missing Sun did the right thing and reported it to his boss. Two days later three employees of Apple’s contractor forcefully and illegally searched his house. There are also allegations flying around that Sun was detained and beaten.
This is nothing new, Apple’s contractor – Foxconn has been accused of everything from forcing employees to work 15 hour days, 7 days a week through to imprisoning employees in dormitories.
Apple are well aware of the issues and in the past have “investigated” claims but nothing has ever been done to correct them. They are responsible for the welfare of these people. I don’t care if the companies are contracted or not. They are accountable to Apple but Apple does not feel accountable to the world’s laws. Even the Dickensian laws of China.
What really gets to me is that much of the noise on the blogosphere around this particular story is not about how poorly the employee was treated but rather around the fact that there could be a fourth generation iphone out on the loose. Which quite frankly disguists me and so should it digust you.
Think twice about how you want your fellow men treated before you buy another Apple product.
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