Apple faces fresh questions after another apparent suicide by worker at Chinese iPad and iPhone supplier Foxconn

By Damien Gayle

PUBLISHED: 14:01 EST, 14 June 2012 | UPDATED: 15:46 EST, 14 June 2012

Another worker at Apple supplier Foxconn leapt to his death yesterday, the first apparent suicide since the company agreed with its U.S. client to improve workers' conditions.

The 23-year-old worker jumped from his apartment outside the massive Foxconn plant in the south-western city of Chengdu, according to a statement from the company.

It is just the latest suicide by a worker at the Chinese electronics giant, which employs 1.2million people and supplies many of the biggest names in consumer gadgets.

This image is believed to show the Foxconn worker preparing to jump from a dormitary building on June 13

As well as making the iPad and the iPhone, Foxconn workers put together Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Playstation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Apple and Foxconn reached an agreement just months ago to improve conditions for the workers assembling iPhones and iPads after the spate of suicides led to global condemnation.

According to the agreement, Foxconn would hire tens of thousands of new workers to reduce overtime, improve health and safety protocols and upgrade housing and other amenities.

The move came after Apple agreed to an investigation by the independent Fair Labor Association earlier this year to stem criticism that its products were built in sweatshop-like conditions.

Hard work: Another Foxconn worker has committed suicide, just months after Apple had reached an agreement with the supplier to improve conditions for staff

That investigation found 'significant' problems at Foxconn's plants.

Employees can work 76-hour weeks and for 11 days in a row, yet are paid as little as ?150 a month. That's around three-quarters the country's average wage, but less than half the price of the iPads they make.

The New York Times claimed in a recent report that some workers making iPads and iPhones said they stand so long their legs swell until they can hardly walk.

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Questions about working conditions at Foxconn first emerged in 2010, when 18 workers threw themselves from the tops of the company's buildings, with 14 deaths.

Following the aftermath, the company installed safety nets and in some of its factories, hired counsellors to help employees.

Factory staff working on the Apple iPad: 90 per cent of the technology giant's products are made at Foxconn's plants

In January this year it was back in the spotlight when 150 employees protested and threatened to commit suicide by leaping form their factory roof in protest at their working conditions.

Eventually they were coaxed down and the company reported it had come to an agreement with the employees.

Despite the agreement with Apple to improve workers' conditions at Foxconn, troubles have continued to rock the electronics company.

The worker who apparently committed suicide yesterday had only joined the company last month. Police are investigating his death.

Cramped: A report released earlier this year found that Foxconn employees often worked long hours in unsafe conditions for poor pay

Earlier this month About 1,000 workers from the same Chengdu plant, which employs 120,000 people, went aon the rampage earlier after a dispute in a company restaurant turned violent.

'We've made a ton of effort': Apple CEO Tim Cook has vowed to work for better conditions for Foxconn workers

Workers reportedly threw bins, chairs and even fireworks at security officers from the upper floors of the building after the riot broke out in a dormitory at the plant.

Although the violence was said to have started after two guards called out to stop a thief, it is clear that staff took the opportunity to air their grudges at working conditions.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has vowed to work to improve conditions at the plants, where 90 per cent of the technology firm's products are made, including reducing overtime, which the report found some workers were not paid for.

'We want everyone to know what we are doing, and we hope that people copy. We've put a ton of effort into taking overtime down,' Mr Cook said in May.

The announcement was seen as a landmark decision that would change the way Western companies would deal with Chinese firms.

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