If your first reaction to this story’s headline is one of confusion, then join the club. I mean, why would someone who builds iPads for a living be anything but ecstatic, right? But do yourself a favour and read through the rest of this piece before switching careers.

Chinese factories making iPads and iPhones are forcing staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide. And if they do, their families will get next to no compensation. This comes after at least 14 workers at Foxconn factories in China have killed themselves in the last 16 months as a result of horrendous working conditions. Many more are believed to have either survived attempts or been stopped before trying at the Apple supplier’s plants in Chengdu or Shenzen.

Can you guess what that net is for?

An investigation of the 500 000 workers by the Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) found appalling conditions in the factories.

They claimed that:

• Excessive overtime was rife, despite a legal limit of 36 hours a month. One payslip showed a worker did 98 hours of overtime in one month!
• During peak periods of demand for the iPad, workers were allowed to take only one day off in 13.
• Badly performing workers were humiliated in front of colleagues.
• Workers are banned from talking and are made to stand up for their 12-hour shifts.

And all this for a minimum wage of about R60 a day?

A little low considering Apple made profits of $6 billion in the first quater of this year alone.

[Source: Daily Mail]