Foxconn chairman calls Chinese workforce "Animals"

Armand2REP

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Foxconn chairman likens his workforce to animals

"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," said Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou at a recent year-end party, adding that he wants to learn from Chin Shih-chien, director of Taipei Zoo, regarding how animals should be managed.

Gou not only invited Chin to take part in his company's annual review meeting but also asked all general managers in the group to listen to Chin's lecture, according to the local Common Wealth magazine.

Gou's words could have been chosen more carefully. Hon Hai is the Taiwanese parent company of Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, which counts Apple among its major clients, turning out iPhones and iPads at its huge plants in China where working and living conditions are such that many of its Chinese employees might well agree that they are treated like animals.

As Chin lectured on the stage, sharing his experience with the audience on how to manage different animals according to their individual temperaments, Gou listened carefully and asked Chin to put himself in his place as the chairman of Hon Hai, to the amusement of the 12 general managers of the group present.

For Terry Gou, however, it is no joke as he genuinely faces a critical difficulty in managing his workers.

"It's a tough job to manage a workforce of over one million, young people's hearts in China are hard to get hold of," lamented a vice president at Foxconn.

Gou recently traveled to university campuses to talk with students, where he declared that he plans to invest in the automation of his factories. From a spate of individual worker suicides in 2010 to the recent incident where a group of employees threatened to kill themselves en masse at the company's plant in Wuhan, it can be seen that the most challenging issue for the Taiwanese tycoon is how to manage his people.

From 2010, Foxconn launched a gradual change in its approach following a series of worker suicides at its plants, which made Gou aware that China is no longer a cheap labor camp where young workers will accept any hardship to improve their family's condition.

Young people in Taiwan meanwhile, especially those who have undergone higher education, are conversely not necessarily willing to enter the manufacturing industry; they would rather enter the service sector, opening cafes and online shops. These factors have given Gou and other entrepreneurs like him food for thought.

Gou is also keenly aware that in a time of economic change and rising incomes in China, it will be difficult to avoid the problem of labor shortages even if the company continues to raise wage levels. What he may not have grasped however is the inconvenient truth that his workers are not in fact animals.

Foxconn chairman likens his workforce to animals|Economy|News|WantChinaTimes.com
 

Ray

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The man is a weirdo to think Chinese are animals!

How exactly are the Chinese animals?
 

Armand2REP

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He works them like animals, herds them like animals, and feeds them like animals. Working at Foxconn you are no better than a slave. The sooner Gou closes the plants down and installs automated factories will be a blessing to the Chinese people. They do not need to work for such a pig. The real crime is CCP allowing such conditions to persist emphasising their utter failure to stop it.
 

Godless-Kafir

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As an non-dualist and atheist i see all humans as animals to, this guy was taken out of context deliberately to harm his reputation, another shameless and dishonest reporting for TRP.

Our enemy are the communists not the people of china.
 

SADAKHUSH

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He works them like animals, herds them like animals, and feeds them like animals. Working at Foxconn you are no better than a slave. The sooner Gou closes the plants down and installs automated factories will be a blessing to the Chinese people. They do not need to work for such a pig. The real crime is CCP allowing such conditions to persist emphasising their utter failure to stop it.
He is not alone in treating the workforce as a caged animals. I have seen the documentaries which exposed the garment manufacturers practising the same way. Can you imagine 15 to 16 year old children working up to twenty hours to meet the deadline for delivery? After that their pay was docked for not meeting the required quality.

Even in Canada some Chinese bring the same attitude and enforce the same practise inspite of strong labour laws.
 

cir

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Nice compliments!

Animal spirits! Way to go!! :thumb:
 

Blackwater

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I think pakis will be more disturbed by this comment. We all know, attack on chinis is attack on pakis:p:p:taunt::taunt:
 

amoy

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I missed that part of 'animal' talk since I only watched late sections of the interaction on campus.

Some impressive Q&A -

* Terry Guo explains that Hon Hai (Foxconn) is far more than OEM "manufacturing". It has "integrated the whole process vertically" and and been doing innovations

* Guo tells why his investment in V.I.P. (Vietnam, India, and Philippines) doesn't work out as expected though he's been advised not to put all eggs in one basket (read Mainland). Guo, however, says Brazil can be a greener pasture where he'd recruit lots of talents (from Taiwan schools) for spearheading...

* A mainland student asks whether students like him would be appraised on the same par as his Taiwnese peers

* A Taiwan student says economic / employment prospect is so dull in TW that he has to work as a trucker while working on his doctorate

Most of times Guo doesn't elaborate while leaping from one subject to another. But he quickly averts dipping that "suicide en masse" part
 

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