Foxconn, a Chinese company that assembles Apple products, has forced employees to sign a pledge promising that they won't commit suicide, according to the Daily Mail.
The company has been criticized for providing an unsavory working environment, with a string of worker suicides putting the spotlight on bad conditions and low pay at the plant, where some 420,000 employees work. In the last 16 months, at least 14 Foxconn workers in plants in the Chinese cities of Shenzen and Chengdu have killed themselves. It's believed that many more have survived suicide attempts or been stopped before they acted. Foxconn has even taken such steps as installing nets outside factory dormitories to deter potential jumpers.
In the strange agreement, employees vow not to commit suicide, and if they do, they pledge that their families will only seek the minimum legal damages. The agreement was uncovered by a study by the Centre for Research on Multinational Companies and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom).
The study also found that workers were forced to log overtime far beyond the legal limit of 36 hours per month. Additionally, when the company was scrambling to meet high demand for the iPad, workers were only allowed one day off in 13. Workers not meeting performance standards were also publicly castigated in front of other employees. Workers are also banned from talking and sitting down during 12-hour shifts. Some are only allowed to see their families once a year, the study said.
"It is not something we endorse or encourage. However, I would not exclude that this might happen given the diverse and large population of our workforce. But we are working to change it," Foxconn spokesperson Louis Woo told the Daily Mail.
Woo also said that employees were "encouraged not to engage in conversations that may distract them from the attention needed to ensure accuracy and their own safety."
Recently Foxconn charged three employees with leaking a case design for the iPad 2.