"The employees families have to promise 'not sue the compan.'"(Image by Glenn Fleishman.)

If a new report on Think Progress is accurate, Apple is employing curious methods to deal with a series of suicides by workers turning out iPhones and iPads at a soul-crushing pace at the Taiwan-based Foxconn factories:

“In the wake of a huge wave of suicides at Foxconn plants, the company began reforming its practices related to the suicides. Among these changes included installing anti-suicide nets to catch workers who attempted to leap out of company windows. Yet workers are also being forced to sign a non-suicide pact as a condition of employment. As part of the pact, the employees families have to promise ‘not sue the company, bring excessive demands, take drastic actions that would damage the company’s reputation or cause trouble that would hurt normal operations’ in the case of a suicide.”