Open letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs
Remembering the victims of Foxconn
On this day, June 8th, we wish the whole world to remember the Foxconn suicides, and we extend our deepest condolences to the victims’ families and friends. We feel very saddened that public comments from Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou, CEO of the 800,000-strong Foxconn “electronics kingdom”, show a tendency to dismiss the suicides of his young employees without considering the contribution of the high-pressure work environment to this phenomenon.
We call for a comprehensive, independent investigation into Foxconn’s management systems to determine their connection to employee suicides. Foxconn publicizing visits by psychologists with the dismissive suggestion that the number of Foxconn suicides is below the national norm looks like a feeble effort to hide the problem. No genuine scientific study would end on such a comparison which does not consider that the Foxconn suicides were of 18 to 24 year old young people employed in the city.Nor does it consider the “norm” of Chinese workers committing suicide to fight terrible working conditions.
We call on Apple CEO Steve Jobs, head of one of the world’s most successful technology businesses and a big buyer of Foxconn products, to swiftly reform Apple’s purchasing practices to support the enforcement of workers’ rights. [...]
Full text of the letter is available at http://sacom.hk/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/letter-to-apple-ceo-steve-jobs.pdf.
