Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.
The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.
It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.
Oh, Foxconn again. a) Suicide rates of Foxconn workers match that of Mainland university students (and is way lower than the overall average but that would compare the young often male workers against elderly rural ladies) and b) it’s a Taiwanese company.
Don’t get me wrong though they’re still awful but they’re not that awful. Also they’re pulling out of China, wages are getting too high.
I like how you think that’s somehow a defense of Foxconn and not showing that it sucks to live in China overall.
Not really. 14 in a year out of 1m employees makes a rate of 1.4/100k let’s see how that number compares to WHO statistics. Armenia has a rate of 1.4 in the 25-34 age range, and it’s the second lowest. China average in that group is 5.9.
What you’re looking it is the suicide rate of people of a population which thinks it has a future: Students got into university, kids from poor villages made it into Foxconn to make money – yes, minimum wage, but they’re making money. Their alternative would be working on the family farm for much less than that (though including room and board). Or work in construction, a much more physically demanding and dangerous job. There’s not many options in China for rural people.
There’s a fucking fuckton to criticise about Foxconn not to speak of China or tankies or capitalists in general. This isn’t one of those things. On the contrary, focussing in on a false narrative detracts from actual issues such as worker’s safety, forced overtime, the right-out military company culture, etc. When did you last hear about those things? Did you hear about them, ever? Nah, it’s always the suicides.
I’m pretty sure less than 14 people in a year jumped off of Google’s headquarters.
(Insert virtually any other non-Chinese corporation or factory not located in China in Google’s place.)
I’m also pretty sure Google didn’t have to install suicide nets.
Google isn’t the equivalent to Foxconn. It would be more like Ford or some Detroit automaker.
Which one of them has suicide nets?
NYU and Cornell have done so
Google has had suicides, but no prevention schemes
The real answer is that the Detroit car factories aren’t tall enough to kill anyone. People pick more practical locations like Hudson Yards or the Golden Gate Bridge.
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Are NYU and Cornell like Ford or some Detroit automaker? Otherwise, I’m pretty sure you’re defeating your own point.
Google doesn’t have a million employees. It also doesn’t have company barracks, if a google engineer wants to off themselves they’re probably going to do it at home or on the Bay Bridge, not at headquarters. Where you probably can’t open the windows on the upper floors.
But if you can find suicide rates of google employees – not just on-site, but overall, I’m all ear. You can look at literally any population, it’s never going to be zero.
What? You mean other corporations don’t require their employees to sleep at their jobs?!
But I’m sure that can’t possibly have anything to do with mental illness leading to suicide, hence all the suicide nets on the buildings of all of those other factories. Oh wait.
As far as I’m aware it’s not a requirement. They’re there to make money and the company barracks are cheap. Students in the US also aren’t required to live in dormitories, but more often than not they do.
Sorry… are you comparing student dorms with factory barracks? What shithole college did you go to?
I’m not American. I lived in a flat when studying. From what I’ve heard you can’t even cook in US student dorms that’d be an absolute no-go for me. Also, roommates are required and you get no choice in who that’s going to be.
But maybe a better comparison would be to bunks on an oil rig… with the difference that Foxconn workers aren’t required to sleep in barracks, they’re free to sleep elsewhere. No such option on an oil rig. You also see temporary accommodation on larger construction sites. Or farmers offering bunk-beds to seasonal workers.