Steve Jobs: Foxconn Plant a 'Pretty Nice Place'

Speaking at the All Things Digital conference this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs described the Foxconn facility in China where 10 workers jumped to their deaths as "a pretty nice place." Jobs defended the conditions at the plant, saying that it is not a "sweatshop," but did concede that the recent tragedies at the plant were "troubling." Here's a quote:

"You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it's pretty nice," he said.

Apple says that it, like other companies that use the Chinese manufacturing company to make products and components, is closely monitoring the plant's practices.

For its part, Foxconn recently raised the salaries of workers by 20 percent (some reports suggest 30 percent), and other published reports are saying that Apple is rumored to be implementing some sort of plan that would give workers "direct compensation." The rumored figure is around 1 to 2 percent of the retail price of the products manufactured, which seems a bit high to me. Still, anything to bring the salaries of workers at Foxconn up is a good thing; the average worker makes right around $132 USD a month.

Foxconn has defended its treatment of workers and given the media tours of its main facility - the Longhua factory complex - in Shenzhen, to show off sports facilities, dormitories and conditions on production lines. The company has also brought in Buddhist monks and psychiatrists to provide counseling, and has installed nets on buildings designed to catch people who jump.

But a Bloomberg / Business Week report really gets to the heart of why workers might want to kill themselves: the feeling of living a meaningless existence, working like a robot on a production line that seems endless.

"Life is meaningless," said one worker who used a fake name to avoid getting into trouble with superiors, "Everyday, I repeat the same thing I did yesterday. We get yelled at all the time. It’s very tough around here."

That feeling of worthlessness is magnified by poor working conditions (some workers stand for 12 hours working the line), shifts that might last as long as 36 hours (by some accounts), industrial noise pollution, a sense of isolation (workers are not allowed to talk to each other when working on the production line) and even controlled bathroom breaks (10 minutes every two hours).

Sources: Daily Mail, Engadget, Zol, PC World, Business Week / Bloomberg