New Taikongren's Advice standard graphic for posts related to Foxconn
From Shanghai-ist, Elaine Chow published a translation of a new letter (original in Chinese here) which Foxconn want’s its employees to sign. I feel its so stupid it can’t be true. Sort of like some of the reality TV shows I never actually watch.
Anyway, the letter advices employees to seek help if they need it, contains a bunch of corporate-y pleasant stuff, then ends with this:
3. In the event of non-accidental injuries (including suicide, self mutilation, etc.), I agree that the company has acted properly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, and will not sue the company, bring excessive demands, take drastic actions that would damage the company’s reputation or cause trouble that would hurt normal operations.
I should be more professional in this blog, but the only thing that comes to my mind is “WTF?” So the employee must acknowledge that if said employee kills himself, it had nothing to do with Foxconn. Wow.
I really have no advice on this. I cannot point to this and create a case study or example. This issue does not raise questions about employee-management relations, or HR best practices. This issue just creates the question, “How can they be so stupid?”
[update 2010-May-27] So another one died today. There are not many people reading my blog today, but I should assume that there will be millions who read it in the future. So I should make one point clear: the most stupid thing about this is that some young kids through away the world and enter the void for NO GOOD REASON. Yes…I’m saying the kids who killed themselves were stupid. Grossly, unforgivably stupid. They threw away the gift of conscious life…which is the most valuable thing in the universe. I’m not saying they were stupid because of society or their parents…I’m not someone who will look for blame here. But I do not believe that Foxconn is responsible for this. Foxconn is responsible for its environment in general. It is clear that they do not manage their people well. It is clear that they don’t know how to manage marketing in a crissis situation. It is clear that they have a lot of Dilbert-types. And I personally don’t believe that the swimming pool they are showing off to reporters is really available to most workers. But its silly to blame the gross stupidity of someone who commits suicide on the company. Unless there are truly some horrible, criminal things happening in the company, but I have not seen evidence for that.
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