• Suicides were not connected to bad working conditions. There was a copy effect. If one commits suicide, then others will follow.
• Foxconn manager Louis Woo • Explaining away last summer’s suicide problem at his factory in China, which is in the business of producing Apple products. The article cites the research efforts of two NGOs, which cast a less than flattering light on the factory — that workers are publicly humiliated if they perform poorly, that they’re treated “inhumanely, like machines,” that they’re paid a stiflingly low wage to force them to work exhaustively long hours, that they have to sign an anti-suicide pledge telling them to “treasure their lives” — it’s a grim and disconcerting read. Woo’s explanation for the problem of his workers killing themselves seems rather lame, as well. If one commits suicide, the others will follow? That’s not exactly a logical process you’d expect to see in a group of people who were otherwise living happy lives. source

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