My experience of whistleblowing even here in the west is that usually it goes very very badly. The only real thing open to you is to refuse to do anything unethical, quit and walk away. Many people can't afford to do that. Things ought to be different but we live in corrupt societies where the law is different for the rich and powerful than for everyone else.
"Under Chinese competition law, the complainant has to show proof that their business operations were hurt by the theft of trade secrets. Foxconn said that, as a result of Tang’s disclosures, it had incurred costs of Rmb1.4mn (about £150,000) in August from having to raise its salaries."<p>I don't think this would even fly in the US.
Slavery is de-facto legal in China and their justice system is rotten to the core. Is this really news to anyone?<p>I would be surprised if this had ended differently.
Didn't the US have a whistleblower bounty with the IRS? I heard it was one of the most successful programs they ever ran. Whistleblow on your company's tax evasion and you get paid a pretty good chunk of money from the IRS. IRS collects its due and you get paid proportional to the amount of tax revenue evaded (I remember a few cases where the whistleblower got tens of millions of dollars).<p>It is kind of bizarre, but the incentives are perfectly aligned, if the tax evasion sum is low you get paid less therefor it is not worth whistleblowing. The IRS doesn't want to catch the small fries, to some extent tax evasion is desired for smaller companies.
As a regular reader of Matt Levine this sounds like an opportunity for a securities fraud suit. Surely Amazon has said that its factories follow local labor laws, that whistleblowers are protected etc. That seems like a fairly standard thing for a large corporation to claim.
After reading both the article and his letter, I can't help but feel so, so sad. There's no glory for this guy. In the States, you'd be able to parlay something like this into a speaking/podcast tour, a book deal, and some consultancy gigs.<p>This guy's life is ruined, his extended family's social credit sullied and, in addition to serving time, he's become the one of the abused workers he tried to protect.<p>If I was the owner of a company and I had read that letter, I wouldn't be able to live with myself without first trying to do something about it. Maybe that's why I'm not the CEO of Amazon. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. I know a guy who went mentally ill after his tenure there. Took him ten years to get back into another job. We're talking about the guy who thought a Vogue Cover with Lauren Sanchez was a good idea.<p>I'm not anti capitalism, anti manufacturing in china, or anti billionaire. I only wish that a human would deliver that letter to Jeff.
I've never worked for any major tech corporation. I've had opportunities to apply to Amazon and Facebook but never followed through with any of them.
It's partly for moral reasons but also partly out of fear because I'm worried about what that would look like on my record in 10 or 20 years' time if the world returns to sanity.
We've seen what happens to members of distrusted groups during periods of social upheaval.
I just cannot bring myself to bet on never-ending insanity. I cannot imagine such world. I'm already worried about my background in tech causing problems.<p>Admittedly, I couldn't imagine the world we have today 10 years ago and I can't imagine the world in 10 years time if it continues down that path. I just don't see the point. I don't want to be rich in such a hypothetical hell hole so my mind doesn't see the point going there.
Article link without paywall: <a href="http://archive.today/UAYFP" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://archive.today/UAYFP</a>
What a shame that companies in question don't even address that a human's right had been violated and do what is right. At least Foxconn could have done the some thing for Tang Mingfang if it wasn't Amazon, if it adressed the issues they had.
In a world run by sociopaths - whistleblowing is a trap to catch the people who could if instead of reporting the issues, they organised together and then could stop you...<p>I've yet to see any whistleblowing case not end badly.
It's naive and foolish to upset the money gravy train.<p>The reality is most countries are corrupted to varying degrees by economic concerns, and it doesn't matter if the country claims to be communist or not.<p>There is no reward except misery, exile, indefinite imprisonment, and/or assassination for pie-eyed, meat-headed idealists.