> You left out the part about dormitories full of modern-day slaves, complete with nets so they don't leap to their deaths. Generally this is frowned upon in the West.

Frowned upon, but you (the US) do have them: https://www.goldengate.org/district/district-projects/suicid...

Seen them here in Germany, too: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vDSL4HeQrLLfYU2m7

That's not the same at all.

That's funny because I've thought it is the same for years and I'm happy to see someone else post a comment about it instead.

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on why you think it's not the same.

These are the extremely obviously different. A company that has to take specific measures to prevent the suicide of their workers should raise a much different level of scrutiny that the fact that a massive bridge available to millions of people is used to commit suicide.

The company had just shy of a million people in it at the time, making the comparison "about the entire population of South Dakota" (which had 139 suicides that year) or "121% of the population of San Francisco" (32 jumped from specifically the Golden Gate bridge in 2010, which was Foxconn's worst year[0], and that doesn't count any of the other suicides in SF that year, just jumping specifically off that specific bridge), and it's nowhere near the only example of this in the USA.

This university had three students jump to their deaths in 2010, out of about 26k students, compared to 15 in Foxconn's worst year out of 980,000 employees:

https://news.sky.com/story/suicide-nets-college-attempts-to-...

Population adjusted, what happened at Cornell University was as if 112 people rather than 15 had jumped in Foxconn.

Or this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Holmes_Bobst_Library

"""In late 2003, the library was the site of two suicides. In separate incidents, students jumped from the open-air crosswalks inside the library and fell to the stereogram-patterned marble floor below.

After the second suicide, the university installed Plexiglas barricades on each level and along the stairways to prevent further jumping. In 2009, a third student jumped to his death from the tenth floor, apparently scaling the plexiglas barricade.[7]

The library has since added floor-to-ceiling metal barriers to prevent any future suicide attempts. The barrier is made of randomly perforated aluminum screens that evoke the zeros and ones of a digital waterfall.[8]"""

2 out of 59,144 students would be equivalent to 33 out of the 980k Foxconn employees, double the number who actually jumped.

[0] https://abc7news.com/archive/7878562/

Why should a company require more strict scrutiny than, say, a public bridge? Well of course there are many reasons, but specifically: in the case of addressing suicide? If a bridge is being used to commit suicide then... perhaps the problems causing suicide should be addressed instead of (or... in addition to) the symptom of suicide being prevented.

The Golden Gate Bridge is a public bridge and a destination for suicidal people.

Foxconn is a place where people live and work. Not accessible to the public.

Where is the overlap?

Foxconn is the same size of the combination of all of San Francisco on one side of the bridge with quite a lot of the small settlements on the north side.

Treating Foxconn as "a company" is fine for legal purposes, but it's on a scale of "one of the larger incorporated cities, close to the top 10" by US standards — or indeed "South Dakota". (Similar population, but Foxconn's revenue is about 3.7x South Dakota's GDP or 81% of San Francisco's GDP).

I don't get all the hubbub about the nets. Classic example of trying to do something good (save lives) and getting attacked for it.

Compare to barriers around train/subway platforms, nets or high barriers on bridges. All sorts of things. It's pretty much a "large number of people living around tall structures" thing.

When I'm feeling positive about humanity, I think it's a failure of comprehension of the scale of Foxconn. The company is about the size (both population and economic output) of a small country all by itself, and people are bad at imagining things on that scale.

When I'm feeling negative, a Tom Gauld cartoon comes to mind: https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2xljaz/us_vs_them/

While I agree with the sentiment, the new administration clearly doesn’t care about that and has no intention of fixing it. This political theater so they can fix it later.

Except they have dormitories with safety nets in India and Vietnam too.

The riot in India was because they weren't getting paid, not because of the work conditions.

Gosh, they were not getting paid despite those conditions? That’s batshit crazy.

There are nets on bridges and other places in the US, too.

Also I don't think the suicide rate of those workers you are referring to is higher than the general population. There are simply lots of workers. For example, Foxconn has more than 1 million employees so it is normal that there would be some level of suicide within such a large population.

We have millions of people here, suicide rates are not that high, and no nets. So what is your argument exactly?

The US? Your suicide rates are higher, and you do have nets[0].

In their worst year, Foxconn had 15 suicides from 930,000 people for a rate of 1.6 per 100k[1].

The US region with the current lowest rate is the District of Columbia, at 6.1 per 100k; the US national average in Foxconn's worst year was about 13 per 100k[2].

Today, the USA national average ranks them #31 highest in the world with a rate of 14.5 per 100k, while China's national average of 6.7 per 100 is close to your best region (DC) and ranks them #122 (higher rank number means lower rate)[3].

Foxconn, in that year, had a workforce about the same size as the total population of South Dakota. South Dakota in that year had a suicide count of 139 [4].

[0] https://www.goldengate.org/district/district-projects/suicid...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#/...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

[4] Page 5: https://sprc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/South-Dakota-Sui...

Did you actually compare suicide rates to China in general? Something tells me you didn't.

> Generally this is frowned upon in the West. India and Vietnam wouldn't tolerate it either

Yes, "frowned upon" is the perfectly realistic way to describe it.

Dior was just caught using effectively slave labor including illegal immigrants in Italy (so they can say "Made in Italy" on the label), all locked in, working and sleeping in the makeshift factory, working round the clock shifts, operating machines with safeties disabled so they're more productive, making 2700E handbags for 53E [0]. The court just called it "Unethical Supply Chain" but no criminal charges. Luxury brands are put "on notice".

> thousands of small foreign-owned manufacturers supply luxury brands with goods that can claim the prized “Made in Italy” label but are produced at “Made in China” prices.

If you thought now you can sleep well but still buy cheap (or even a 2700E handbag) because your product isn't made in China, think again. And this isn't just Italy, it's everywhere. And it isn't just iPhones or Dior handbags, it's almost every cheap thing you buy. Business owners are greedy and chase profits, and customers are cheap and most just don't care beyond their own needs and wants.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2024/06/24/italian-...

It's not just >Business owners are greedy and chase profits, and customers are cheap and don't care beyond their own needs and wants.

You have the judicial system of Italy that is complicit in this behavior in this instance and others in different cases.

Although, it seems to be Dior's subcontractors: >found two of its Chinese-owned subcontractors based outside Milan had exploited their workers.

And Dior was not doing audits.

No comment in the article on the fate of the subcontractors who violated the law.... very encouraging.

Sorry, but comparing the living/working standards of [developing country] to the wealthiest nation on earth is a silly 1990s emotional appeal ignoring the reality that, every society has to climb the ladder. And actively harms this process.

You do realize the default state of humanity is living in the dirt and fighting off starvation daily right? It takes decades/hundreds of years to develop an advanced economy and fight for the institutions that enable this not to be the case. Undesirable manufacturing jobs lead to desirable manufacturing jobs (as is happening rapidly there!)

Foxconn not being a rung on the ladder in China doesn’t mean locals suddenly get American living standards, it means they never climb the ladder and get stuck with even worse alternatives —- I don’t think you realize the history of China is basically constant mass starvation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China

> complete with nets so they don't leap to their deaths.

These nets are everywhere here. In the our other building's (which is an R&D facility where nobody is a modern day slave by your definition) stair well, construction sites, bridges, etc.

I saw it all over Europe in buildings, bridges, etc.

Which Europe? I live in Germany and travel frequently around most of the Western, Central and Northern Europe. No nets.

This is in central Berlin, the net is just about visible: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vDSL4HeQrLLfYU2m7

Clifton Suspension Bridge in the UK is infamous for it, which is why it's now got a barrier up on the pedestrian section: https://maps.app.goo.gl/U1xYZHqhhxNoKMDV7

I think I saw one in Freiburg, in University. I vaguely remember seeing some nets in The Netherlands. Probably inside Science Park buildings.

US prison population is essentially modern day slaves… yes some of them are there for truely horrific things but a lot are their on minor issues