Foxconn opens plant to reporters after suicides ...

By WILLIAM FOREMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SHENZHEN, China — The head of Foxconn bowed deeply several times and apologized Wednesday for a spate of suicides at the factory that makes Apple iPods and iPhones, promising the electronics giant will try to stop more deaths.

But the usually media-shy executive, Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou, cautioned there was only so much his company could do.

“We're a company, we are not a society,” said Gou. “We have a company's abilities to do things but we don't have a society's abilities.”

Foxconn on Wednesday opened up its sprawling factory complex in the southern city of Shenzhen to reporters, an unprecedented move from the normally super-secretive Taiwanese company still struggling to come to terms with the suicides of 10 young workers this year. The company has been a lightning rod for labor activists who say its working conditions cause misery for its vast work force.