The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html

What do you think? If it were proper slave labour then would they be allowed to sleep on the job?

EDIT: thread title is from the Daily Mail article title.

 

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They are an outsource provider, it's not MS directly, now obviously it's a shame but it's not just MS that employ that particular company, but shock of shocks let's go for the most well known. Never mind the fact that Foxconn probably makes most of the system boards in peoples phones, games consoles and computers.

Foxconn produces the Mac mini, the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone for Apple Inc.; Intel-branded motherboards for Intel Corp.; various orders for American computer manufacturers Dell and Hewlett-Packard; motherboards for UK computer manufacturer Zoostorm; the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 for Sony; the Wii for Nintendo; the Xbox 360 for Microsoft, cell phones for Motorola, the Amazon Kindle, and Cisco equipment but because people generally haven't heard of Foxconn they aren't the ones attacked by the Mail.

 

What the reporter won't tell you is that images like this are quite common in China. You see, in the afternoons, the Chinese take a rest break - xiuxi - where they just stop what they're doing and take a nap. I myself took a picture of some restaurant workers who, midway through shelling peas (or whatever veggie they were preparing), just laid down in a restaurant booth and crashed for a couple hours. I guess that means they were "slave labor" too?

Not saying there's no slave labor in China... but this picture proves nothing except that the reporter is wholly ignorant of Chinese life. And if the reporters are aware, then shame on them for deliberately trolling.

 

sad thing is most of the people in those 'livable factories' are very happy they have the opportunity, it's a far cry from the sweatshops they could be in, and the pay is good compared to other local options

 

Yes...I was suspicious of the photo to be honest and the Daily Mail is one of those tabloid type papers that do enjoy bending the truth. However, I never knew about xiuxi!

 

Time article about xiuxi: link
Another interesting article about xiuxi (and the differences between Eastern and Western culture): link

I hate to see intentionally misleading reporting like that. Sadly, it's happening more and more often.

Glad to shed some light, bro.

 

I wonder if I can get my employer to adopt this practice?

 

Absolutely. Cost of living is cheap there, too.

 

I was expecting to see Bill gates humping a baboon

Work environments are common in countries like China and it isn't MS directly but one there subsiduaries.

 

Especially when you see this whole table asleep and workers at the other tables awake in the background.

As said, MS have been singled out because they are the most well known.

 

Heh, good one.

 

humping a baboon who is using a Mac now that would be a good picture better stop this before I take it to a whole new level

 

This + 1

Slave labour is thrown around a lot these days, you could say working for the British Minimum wage in a factory over here is slave labour compared to other jobs, in the same way that 34p or whatever it is over there is a pretty average wage.

And they do have organised naps.

It's not just large businesses, speak to the MAJORITY of businesses, that sell ANYTHING made ANYWHERE but the first world, and they are all "guilty" according to the daily mail. The DailyMail needs to speak to the hundreds of thousands of people in the US penal system sentenced to 50+ years for robbing a news agents that are churning out hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business if they want slaves

Good old fashioned tabloid spin doctoring. Bless.

 

If you like I can photoshop something for you, I am quite the artist!!

I read in the article that they get a 10min break, to quote a line from Month Python's the Life of Brian, "The lucky, lucky bast**ds", what I would not do for a 10min break!!!

 

It is unfortunate that companies exist where labor causes them to do these crazy hours. I personally do not approve of this. At the same time, similar stories have been reported for many, MANY companies that are out in the wild (and with some disastrous results, such as suicides at Apple plants etc).

Microsoft is not as hardware based as some other companies per se (thus occurences of abuse overall may be lower), and so a lot of this won't apply, but even then I wouldn't like to see people driven to slave-like jobs, even if their situations are a lot "nicer" than at some other companies as was mentioned by our friend Phoenix.

 

Its the Daily Mail for crying out loud, I see more factual reporting in the local freebie paper produced by someone in his front room....

Best Daily Mail related quote from Mock the Week, adverts you'll never see on TV "The Daily Mail - Racist in public so you don't have to be"

 

Whenever people get on their high horses about this sort of thing, it's always worth considering if the state of affairs isn't the fault of the western consumer in the first place.

Bet the hack that wrote it has at some point in his life grumbled about how much his Macbook cost him.
Handy to forget about that when pumped full of ill-informed indignation.

And what I don't get is why MS always seem to get flack for this sort of thing.
Apple (and others) use similar facilities and you very rarely see them dragged through the mud.
Don't get me started on anti-compettive practices.
We've all got iPods in the family, mine being the newest, and guess what, I can't use the third party charger that works on all the others. The blasted machine knows it's not an Apple branded charger and even tells you.

Anyone been watching the documentary series about Lagos on at the moment?
I was hooked on the first episode. An entire community that actually exists in the city dump. They live there, get their hair cut, eat out, everything.

To earn their couple of pennies a day they do things like burn the plastic coating of electrical wire so they can sell the copper.

That's obviously only the ones that aren't related to the dead president/CEO/wealthy businessman.