

One more employee from Foxconn falls off building and dies - vaksel
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-05/15/c_13295848.htm

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zach
To be fair, Foxconn employs over 300,000 workers in Shenzen. Yes, really --
they are the world's largest electronics manufacturer. To put that in
perspective, that's more than two Shenzen Foxconn employees for every living
MIT alumnus. Three hundred thousand. That's a _lot_ of people.

What has made these stories news is the suicide last July of a Foxconn
employee who lost a prototype iPhone. However, suicides since then have not
all been further results of product security breaches. Again, it's not
entirely unexpected when you're talking about _three hundred thousand people_
in close quarters that there will be some suicide, drama, criminality and
perhaps even murder within that population. It's probably doing better by many
measures than most cities of that size in the region.

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andrewtj
In 1999 the suicide rate in China was 13 per 100,000 so my suspicion is that
this story has only been up-voted for mud-slinging purposes. I'm a bit
disappointed to see it on the front page — it doesn't strike me as being
Hacker News.

~~~
nandemo
Without these 2 pieces of data from zach and you (which were not present in
the article), it does look like news.

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gfodor
This is a baby step away from Onion level.

"In the employee's pocket was a short suicide note with the wrong date. It
read 'I am so sad I decided to jump off the building. Oh and I may or may not
have decided to cut myself with a knife, too. Goodbye cruel world.'

Mysteriously, the employee spelled his own name wrong in the note.

Police are still investigating if this was a suicide."

~~~
sp332
If working conditions have improved since the suicides started making the
news, other employees may have manufactured another suicide hoping that
conditions will improve further.

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maigret
A few weeks ago I heard a live presentation by IT workers in Mexiko building
smart phones, and what they told was not really nice. Employers paying
sublegal salaries, harassment etc. Consumers should care about that but they
(I also - mostly because of missing information) don't. It's not helping that
an electronic product has hundred of different components in it, and all end
manufacturers share the same few manufacturers. The current "solution" is to
advise cities, governments and companies about fair(er) products so that these
can put more pressure on the end vendor to control the manufacturing work
conditions. We've still a long way to go.

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mkramlich
they need to fix that roof

~~~
vaksel
sure looks like it:

"It is the ninth fall by Foxconn employees in five months."

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blogimus
Add to that

 _A blood-stained dagger was found with Liang and his body sustained several
knife cuts._

So he stabbed himself and then threw his body off the ledge?

~~~
jarek
They didn't say what kind of cuts, and the "dagger" might be an awkward
translation. Maybe they just meant he cut his wrists.

Unlikely, but not impossible.

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Judson
_"Foxconn felt sorry over the death," he said._

Is it just me or is there very little emotion translated over with this quote?

~~~
Tichy
This confuses me. What are they supposed to be saying? As a non-native
speaker, I have no idea what you mean.

Do you criticize the writing of the article (ie it not being colorful enough)?

~~~
CapitalistCartr
In English, that would be the wrong way to express one's sorrow over the
death. but it's a translation, so our cultural details are irrelevant.

~~~
Tichy
What would be the right way to say it in English?

~~~
jarek
For the situation at hand, probably something like "It is with regret that we
learn about the passing of Mr. Liang. We will keep his family and associates
in our thoughts." Add "and prayers" if in USA.

It means the same thing, it just sounds slightly more appropriate for a
corporation in 2010.

Disclaimer: I'm not quite native either.

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AlexBlom
I'm more interested in the 'blood stained dagger'

Hopefully it is just a bad translation

