◎陳維真 2011/08/09
Foxconn, the world’s largest maker of computer components, has a million employees on the Chinese mainland. In three years, its CEO says it plans to have a million robots.
全球最大電腦零組件製造商富士康公司，在中國大陸擁有百萬名員工。該公司執行長表示，計畫在3年內採用100萬台機器人。
The company has taken a lot of heat over the last couple of years for the conditions under which its people have had to work. In the first half of 2010, there were 10 suicides reported at the company’s massive complex in Shenzen, China -- many involving workers who put in long hours at stifling jobs for little pay.
這家公司在過去幾年因工作環境不佳而招致強烈批評。2010年上半年，該公司中國深圳廠傳出10名員工自殺，許多員工工時漫長，工作內容沉悶，薪資卻相當低。
The company’s founder and chairman, announced that things would change. It will presumably mean robots take the place of some assembly-line workers, doing tasks such as soldering and packaging.
富士康公司創辦人兼董事長宣佈，情況會有所改變。這可能意味著機器人將取代部分生產線工人，從事焊接和封裝之類的工作。
For a high-tech company, Foxconn’s assembly lines are often described as remarkably low-tech.Workers perform repetitive tasks all for what Americans would consider sweatshop wages. Last year, after protests -- and a rash of suicides by workers-- Gou said the company was raising salaries by 70 percent "to safeguard the dignity of workers." After last year’s raises, the average assembly-line worker at Foxconn made the equivalent of $290 a month.
以一家高科技公司來說，富士康的生產線通常被認為技術相當低。工人做著重複性的工作，就為了被美國人視為血汗工廠般的微薄薪資。去年，在員工發起抗爭，並接連自殺後，郭台銘表示會調薪7成以「捍衛員工尊嚴」。去年調薪後，富士康生產線工作人員月薪約290美元。
新聞辭典
take the heat：招致強烈批評、譴責。例句： He had a reputation for being able to take the heat in a crisis.（他因能在危機中承擔外界批評而素有聲譽）。
stifling：令人發悶的、鬱悶難受的、令人窒息的。例句：The heat in this room is stifling.（這屋裡的熱氣讓人熱得難受。）
sweatshop：血汗工廠。例句： The wage sweatshop workers receive are so bad that they rarely improve their economic situation.（血汗工廠的勞工薪資很低，難以改善其經濟狀況。）
資料來源：自由電子報
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