Employee Death Sparks Outrage at Sourcing Factories Essay

On July 16, 2009, a 25-year-old Foxconn employee named Sun Danyong connected felo-de-se by jumping from the twelfth blast of his apartment building. Mr. Sun, who worked at an electronics factory in Shenzen, had been mark in charge of a prototype of a new Apple iPhone that went missing. Mr. Suns finish has sparked outrage about labor conditions at chinawares factories and at the horse opera companies that source from them.Foxconn manufactures electronics for or so of the worlds largest companies, including Sony, Hewlett-Packard, and Apple. When the prototype iPhone went missing, Foxconn allegedly accuse Mr. Sun of stealing and initiated an investigation. On the day forward his death, Mr. Sun told friends he had been beaten and humiliated by factory security guards. Mr. Suns suicide has brought about an outpouring of further complaints against Foxconn, including unpaid extra time and a warring management government activity.However, it is not simply Foxconn that has taken the blame for the suicide and the conditions that led to it. The Western giants that source from FoxconnApple, in particularhave have criticism for their cultures of secrecy, which many believe encourage militant management at their factories. These companies intense efforts to protect their deal secrets at sourcing factories in China point to some other difficulty with sourcing from China intellectual keeping rights violations. common brands interchangeable Apple are counterfeited heavily in China, and prototype stealing is a real and widespread problem.Foreign companies that source from China must thereof walk a very fine cast between protecting their intellectual property and ensuring sightly working conditions that comply with international and local standards. focal point that is too lenient subjects a company to theft and counterfeit,but an overly militant managerial regime may lead to inhumane working conditions and potentially even to tragedies like the suicide of Mr. Sun.Questions1. Was Mr. Suns reaction to the accusation of theft something that only efficacy be expected in China? (10%) 2. Is theft of intellectual property a problem everyplace? why or why not? Does every culture view the importance of intellectual property in the same way? (20%) 3. Why is theft of intellectual property such a advert in foreign sub-contractors? What can be do to control it? (20%)II. Works Councils and maintain and Consult In the EU HP Acquires Compaq (EU/US, 2002)The merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq in whitethorn 2002 triggered extensive consultation with workers in Europe. Under EU requirements, such corporate mergers require companies with 1,000 or to a greater extent employees in the EU, with at least 150 of those in each of two or more extremity states, to consult with their employee representatives (through their works councils) on any craft decisions contemplated as a result of the merger, such as redundancies, restructuring, and changed wo rk arrangements (all of which were triggered by this merger).Because of that experience, HP took the initiative low the new EU state and Consult leading (and the pendingat that timeUK enabling legislation) to run the first US firm to announce an Inform and Consult framework which was approved by its workforce. At quarterly meetings, HPs management consulted with and certain their employee representatives on matters such as HP UK line of merchandise strategies, financial and operational performance, investment plans, organizational changes, and scathing employment decisions, such as layoffs, outsourcing, workforce agreements, and health and safety.Key UK HP managers plus HP employee representatives choose to the HP consultative forum from each of the quaternity UK business units met on aquarterly basis. Wally Russell, who was HPs European employee relations director at that time, said, My let preference is that we be the master of our own destiny. So lets work unitedly now to develop a model that suits HPs culture.Questions1. What do the EU directives on works councils and Inform and Consult require in a circumstance like this? To whom do these directives apply? (25%) 2. What is it about European culture that has led to the development and implementation of these sorts of practices and policies? Why havent they developed in countries like the US? (25%)