First of all, it is necessary to know that the Apple factory in China is not technically an Apple factory. Nokia, Samsung From plastic covers to speakers of many devices such as; Many key components, from keyboards to circuits, are produced by Foxconn.
This giant technology manufacturer produces phone parts through the companies it owns. while they produce 70% He also made his name known to the world. But with a bad reputation.
Foxconn is a huge company based in Taiwan.

Business, Taiwanese businessman Terry Gou was founded by It is one of the largest employers in China, with 1.3 million employees in 2018.
It also has gigantic facilities covering an area of 2.1 km around the world. In these facilities, surrounded by city-like complexes, Foxconn’s products are produced almost in an industrial city.
The company’s leader, Terry Gou, is turning heads with his $7 billion fortune and has been dubbed Taiwan’s Donald Trump. Oddly enough, he prefers to be addressed as “General”. Although Gou is one of the names driving Foxconn’s success The company’s power and influence faded into the background over time.
The main production is Apple products.

such as Samsung, HP, Nokia Among the products produced by other brands, the iPhone is the most popular. The region where the production takes place is a state where people have historically suffered from poverty. It should also be noted that people call this place the “iPhone State.”
Employees come to this region from other cities and live in the facilities. life in prisonIt would be more correct to say ‘i’ because these workers are worked like slaves.
to this factory You may be wondering what conditions are required to be hired as an employee. Let’s say it straight away; All you have to do is queue up to get hired outside the factory!
The company has faced severe criticism over time with suicide cases.

To deal with this crisis following the suicide of its employees, Foxconn “General” Under Gou’s leadership, it had decided to collaborate with US-based PR firm Burson-Marsteller. Foxconn, ‘Use foreign rules while fighting’ He tried to manage the crisis based on his principles.
Workers live in the factory facility busy working hours, The fact that they were not rewarded for their labor and the difficult conditions in the institution showed that they were driven to suicide.
Although the company does not accept this situation, there is no question that the factory employs people as slaves. Employees cannot leave 12-story buildings. 8 people share a room and each floor has a shared bathroom for 200 people.
As a result of the investigation into the incident, it was realized that employees were prohibited from resigning.

While employees working under difficult conditions complain about this situation, it is also said that there is nothing they can do. Nearly 300,000 employees work at Foxconn’s massive Longhua factory facility; iPhone, Sony PlayStation and Dell The company organized a party to boost the morale of its employees after the suicides occurred while they spent their days producing computers.
For similar reasons, their employees jumping off buildings Over time, his suicide made Foxconn owner Terry Gou the focus of criticism in the press.
The suicides especially took the company global In order to bring products like the iPhone to the market at affordable prices, young workers are subjected to harsh conditions. He introduced himself as a beast of the industry he worked for.
It’s not a lie either; What employees say about the company supports these claims. IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Apple These events emerged as a serious pressure and PR problem for companies like Foxconn, which maintain close commercial relationships with Foxconn.
Gou said that he did not take suicides seriously:

“The first, the second and the third… I didn’t see these as problems.. We have approximately 800,000 employees here and a campus of 2.1 square kilometers. I feel responsible now. But at the time I didn’t feel like I had to take responsibility for what happened. “After the fifth suicide in March, I decided to do something different.”
In fact, Foxconn did not enter a crisis management situation after the fifth suicide case. However, after this date, to prevent suicides, they decided to surround their buildings with 3 million square meters of wire fences, set up a 24-hour support line and pay employees’ salaries. As a solution he offered a 30% increase.
To use workers’ power more effectively, Gou; He decided to meet his food, health care, and shelter needs at work.
This strategy greatly reduce costs He almost had the upper hand in outperforming his rivals. That’s exactly what he did.
used in cooking eggs are obtained from chickens raised on campus, A specially assembled team was appointed to produce the tools the workers would use.
On the campus, whose entrance is reminiscent of a prison atmosphere, there are fast food shops, There was a monotonous city with ATMs, Olympic swimming pools, LED screens with service announcements and bookstores.
Gou’s biography books were prominently displayed in bookstores.
Where employees stay.
Gou, who gives extensive space to his interesting principles in these books, “Work is also a form of entertainment, zHe used phrases such as “A friendly environment is a good thing” and “An army of 1,000 men is easy to find, but a general is hard to find.”
To himself Not “boss” but “general” He wanted to be addressed as. This is actually enough reason to reveal what kind of system he works with.
The important turning point of the company is It was through his collaboration with Atari in 1980. This agreement was a crucial step in the company’s growth process. The collaboration, which began with the production of 2,600 consoles, also resulted in Foxconn’s first major corporate partnership. Later, it grew rapidly in the field of consumer electronics and became a leader in the private sector in Taiwan.
This rapid rise of the company went unnoticed by the media. No news about Foxconn was published until June 2006.

But in 2006 In London’s Daily Mail A published article drew attention to Foxconn. In the article, he discussed that 30,000 workers worked under difficult conditions at the company’s factory in Longhua.
Following these statements, chaos ensued; Apple sends a team to the factory decided to investigate the employees. This inspection report showed that working conditions were indeed very difficult. Employees are working more than usual and experiencing difficulties in paying salaries in three-layer bunk beds They lived in prison.
In response to the report, Foxconn made agreements on the issues for which it was criticized, but to no avail. In subsequent years, the company would publicize its bad reputation in the media for completely different reasons. One of them is Food poisoning in 2022 The factory in India was closed due to the protests of living factory workers.
The phones and tablets that many of us currently have come from employees working under these difficult conditions. Even though checks are carried out by taking into account complaints about the company We hope for a production center where conditions have improved.
Sources: CNN, The Verge, Cleverism
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