Foxconn using unpaid student interns to build the PS4

Desmond

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Looks like old habits die hard. Foxconn is at it again.

If reports in the Chinese press are to be believed, Sony’s next-gen games console may be being assembled using some very outdated labor practices. According to Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily, thousands of students from an IT engineering program at the Xi’an Institute of Technology are being forced to work at Foxconn’s Yantai plant assembling the Sony Playstation 4. Students have been told if they refuse to participate, they lose six course credits, which effectively means they will not be able to graduate.

Officially, the program is considered an “internship” and it is publicly recognized and promoted by the school. But students have said that once they got to Foxconn, they were assigned to jobs that had no relation whatsoever to their fields of study, including grunt work like distribution and shipping. One student, for example, majored in finance and accounting but has been assigned to a job that entails glueing together parts of Sony’s Playstation 4. Another was assigned to a job that entails peeling of the PS4′s protective plastic and putting stickers on it. Still another, a computer science major, puts the PS4′s various cords and the instruction manual into the console’s box. Moreover, students say that their working hours are exactly the same as regular workers. The only difference is that unlike the workers, the students aren’t being paid.

Foxconn told the Oriental Daily that its workers are all voluntary and that it has no interest in preventing them from leaving work if they choose to. The Xi’an Institute of Technology declined to comment on whether the university had received an agent’s fee for providing what is essentially free labor to the Foxconn plant and did not directly answer questions about whether or not the internship program was forced, but stressed that it was legal and that it was “mainly about making students learn about society and experience life.”

This is not the first time Foxconn has been involved in a controversial and apparently compulsory internship program. In fact, a story involving Foxconn and this exact same college (the Xi’an Institute of Technology) emerged last year, too.

Whether or not this kind of “internship” is technically legal, it definitely makes you feel a little icky about the launch of the upcoming PS4. It looks like an exciting console, but when people start unboxing them later this fall, I’ll be wondering how many of those consoles were packaged and shipped by students who were essentially forced to work long hours without getting paid.
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Source : Report: Foxconn using forced student labor to build Sony's PS4
 
icebags

icebags

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at least they get industrial exposure. besides, which engg student likes to learn/ study if he is not forced ? :D
 
debarshi

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icebags said:
at least they get industrial exposure. besides, which engg student likes to learn/ study if he is not forced ? :D
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Just because he's a engg student, but that doesn't mean he will be forced to work in places without pay.

And no, proper engineering students after the 2nd/3rd year really likes to know about these things
 
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Desmond

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Not only the PS4, Foxconn has been assembling the new XBox One as well.

Foxconn is already assembling the new Xbox for Microsoft | Games | Geek.com
 
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Flash

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debarshi said:
And no, proper engineering students after the 2nd/3rd year really likes to know about these things
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But students have said that once they got to Foxconn, they were assigned to jobs that had no relation whatsoever to their fields of study, including grunt work like distribution and shipping. One student, for example, majored in finance and accounting but has been assigned to a job that entails glueing together parts of Sony’s Playstation 4. Another was assigned to a job that entails peeling of the PS4′s protective plastic and putting stickers on it. Still another, a computer science major, puts the PS4′s various cords and the instruction manual into the console’s box.
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We don't need a engineering degree to do these things..
 
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Desmond

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Imagine if you that the college you were studying in mandates that you have to do manual labor, say building walls, otherwise they will not allow you to graduate because some building company paid your college for this. How would you feel?
 
icebags

icebags

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DeSmOnD dAvId said:
Imagine if you that the college you were studying in mandates that you have to do manual labor, say building walls, otherwise they will not allow you to graduate because some building company paid your college for this. How would you feel?
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i would have learned enough to assemble my own customized xbox 540, instead of buying one xbox 360 from M$oft. :D

i believe not all engg students are assigned to pulling out stickers or connecting wires blindly, it that was it, they could have hired BA students, not engg students. :D
 
Hrishi

Hrishi

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I really don't know the inside reality , but somehow I get a feeling that brutality is at its peak in that country. I don't see how thats a measure of development.
 
Extreme Gamer

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In any country with fair labour practices, you are paid, and paid rather well, for internships and co-op programs :|

This is actually slave labour, not forced labour, if you ask me.
 
Hrishi

Hrishi

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^ in that country lots of things aren't even close to being called fair. What I am scared about is that the trend happening in that country spreading to other places , due to cheap/inexpensive/free labour and blah blah blah.
 
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Desmond

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Foxconn is alleged to have employees 14 year old kids to work at one point. Also, the working conditions are known to be questionable. Apple had stopped them from manufacturing their devices because of this. But, they still build devices for many other companies.
 
Anorion

Anorion

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^whats the diff?
Foxconn still makes stuff for Apple, Sony, Amazon, HP, MS, Google...
All internships, including 14 year olds. Dont see whats so wrong about it.
Hard work never killed anyone
 
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Desmond

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saswat23 said:
So, Foxconn is a Manufacturing company or its a Pcakaging/Assembling company?
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Both I guess.

Anorion said:
^whats the diff?
Foxconn still makes stuff for Apple, Sony, Amazon, HP, MS, Google...
All internships, including 14 year olds. Dont see whats so wrong about it.
Hard work never killed anyone
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I don't believe students should do manual labor, at least not unpaid. Besides, that internship is a guise to get cheap (free) labor.
 
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