No doubt they're wincing at Apple headquarters and elsewhere over the latest controversy generated by consumer electronics contracting giant Foxconn, though this time at least the bad news doesn't involve exploding factories, poisoned workers, or a string of worker suicides.
Nobody was actually hurt, in fact, though a million Foxconn workers might be a little testy after Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn parent Hon Hai Precision Industry, compared them to "animals." Gou was speaking at the company's recent annual review meeting when he made the comments, according to WantChinaTimes.
"Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache," Gou said, according to the website run by Taiwan's China Times News Group.
The Hon Hai chairman was reportedly entertaining Taipei Zoo director Chin Shih-chien onstage when he asked Chin "how animals should be managed" and instructed Hon Hai executives present to listen carefully to the zookeeper's advice.
WantChinaTimes noted wryly that "Gou's words could have been chosen more carefully." Indeed, Foxconn has come under fire from human rights organizations and labor rights groups in recent years for a series of highly publicized workplace safety breakdowns and allegedly draconian labor practices at its mainland China factories.
Incidents and ongoing controversies at Foxconn facilities in China include a fire last September at a Shandong province plant where Sony products are assembled, an explosion last May at a Chengdu plant where Apple's iPad tablets are assembled, and a string of worker suicides at factories run by the Hon Hai company.
As insensitive as Gou's words appear to be, the Foxconn boss has at least one defender in the tech press. TechCrunch's John Biggs warned that whatever it was Gou said at the event, there could have been "a lot lost in translation."
Besides, Biggs noted, it's important to remember priorities when criticizing such stuff. "[I]n the end, it's companies like Foxconn that keep us in our gadgets," he wrote.