Last week, I looked at the suicide rate at the Chinese factory Foxconn that produces iPads and iPhones. Ten employees have topped themselves this year and we're not even through June. At the time, I suggested the only way this problem can be fixed is if companies like Apple stepped in and instructed Foxconn to fix the problem.
That's unlikely to happen with Apple boss Steve Jobs defending conditions at the factory. Speaking at All Things Digital conference, an annual gathering of A-list technology and media executives in California, he said the factory was "not a sweatshop".
" You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it's pretty nice,' he said.
Maybe he should talk to some of the employees that are still there. They're all working so hard they don't have time to go to restaurants and movie theatres. They say that working life at Foxconn is "meaningless". They do the same thing day in, day out and get yelled at.
Realising it has a problem, the company has just given its workers a 30% pay rise. That's unlikely to make employees more content. Some leadership from Apple would have helped.
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