24/06/2025

Foxconn. Where they kill themselves to make your iphone

A powerful explosion at the iPad-2 production unit at Foxconn's largest factory caused the death of three workers and many injuries about a year ago. 'As with the wave of suicides at the company's factories the year before last, Apple is "investigating the matter". After all, this is a "factory, not a sweatshop", as Steve Jobs, Apple's president and "high priest" for his followers everywhere, had claimed (a study by British neuroscientists showed that fanaticism about Apple products has all the characteristics of religion! Inhuman conditions, even worse than those of the 19th century industrial revolution, prevail in Foxconn's giant factories, which employ close to 1.5 million workers, mostly young people. Apple knows this all too well. Chinese researchers published a study in 2010 with devastating data on the working and living conditions (many are forced to live in the company's squalid dormitories) at this electronics manufacturing giant. They described the factories as vast labour camps, with 18% of workers saying they have fainted at work, and 16% saying they have been beaten. One young worker, Sun Danyong, committed suicide because he was beaten up for losing a new iPhone model. Another jumped off a roof after a 34-hour "shift" in the i-Phone manufacturing chain. This is why it was deemed appropriate to surround the military production organization with ...2000 psychologists. Perhaps this morally covers a visionary who claims he would give up all his technology to meet Socrates one afternoon.

LiFO team

Replacing the personality cult of Mao, Terry Gou, the boss of Foxconn, now takes the spotlight. Photo by Kin Cheung/AP.

Photo Reuters.

The aftermath of an explosion at the building housing the iPad-2 production lines. Hundreds of workers were at their posts in the factory at the time.

Workers scramble to evacuate the explosion site.

An injured man from a Foxconn factory, on a stretcher, arrives at a hospital in Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province on Friday, May 20, 2011. Chinese media reports say two people have died following an explosion at the factory in southwestern China belonging to electronics maker Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

AP photo.

In Foxconn’s “Forbidden City,” work is inseparable from military discipline, reminiscent of the German phrase “Arbeit macht frei.”

The scrutiny of a worker’s potential “socialization” of a product they produce in the thousands, in minimal time. Photo by Jordan Pouille.

Workers in the Weilong dormitory belonging to Foxconn, Longua, Shenzhen which has been fitted with steel wire mesh to stop workers jumping from the windows. The Foxconn factory in Longhua, near Shenzhen. Foxconn is Apple’s major supplier and the Shenzhen plant employ 420,000 workers. There have been a rash of at leat 10 suicides in 2010 believed to be due to harsh management practices…..PHOTOS BY RICHARD JONES/SINOPIX

Foxconn cages lined with barbed wire, designed to prevent despair-stricken workers from jumping out the window.

A dormitory building belonging to Foxconn at longhua where it is know workers making the i.phone live. The dormitory has no air-conditioning and is very basic. Foxconn is Apple’s major supplier and the Shenzhen plant employs 420,000 workers. There have been a rash of at leat 10 suicides in 2010 believed to be due to harsh management practices…..PHOTOS BY RICHARD JONES/SINOPIX

The dormitories and their ostensibly pleasant surroundings.

“You go to this place, and… okay, it’s a factory, but, God, there are restaurants, and movie theaters, and hospitals, and swimming pools. For a factory, it’s pretty nice” (Steve Jobs’ flattering portrayal of Foxconn at an executive meeting).