the request of Apple Inc., suggested that workplace accidents might be commonplace and that workers may consider overtime pay insufficient. Crisis management During the first two and a half months, which included six of the fourteen deaths from suicide, Foxconn took a "no comment" approach to their business crisis. This left them vulnerable to media attacks, allowing the media to fill in their own information about the suicides. Li and Xu made a statement, in their case study about the business' suicides, that "Foxconn's series of employee suicides were severe events in the mind of the general public, and its 'no comment' strategy led to a more negative perception of its reputation and severe consequences." After the sixth suicide, Liu Kun, a spokesperson for Foxconn, stated that they were handling the crisis. He also started using a "denial strategy" to avoid any blame for the suicides and instead directed the fault at "the victims and societal problems." One of the ways Foxconn started handling the crisis was to require that employees sign a waiver stating that Foxconn would not be made liable if any individuals were to commit suicide. This, however, caused more troubles for Foxconn and they eventually retracted the document. After they removed the waiver, they installed safety netting around the facility to prevent future suicides. Foxconn also implemented a pay raise from 950 yuan to 1200 yuan, but they in turn increased their quota by twenty percent as well. Lastly, Foxconn opened their doors to two-hundred journalists. Foxconn informed the writers that they were taking extra steps for the future; which included safety netting and more help hotlines for employees to be able to call. Foxconn The chairman of Foxconn, Terry Gou, made the following statement at a press conference focused on the controversy: "We are certainly not running a sweatshop. We are confident we'll be able to stabilize the situation soon. A manufacturing team of 800,000 people is very difficult to manage." At the time of the company's press conference, the factory complex where the deaths occurred employed up to 300,000 people. In response to the suicides, Foxconn substantially increased wages for its Shenzhen factory workforce, installed suicide-prevention netting, brought in Buddhist monks to conduct prayer sessions and asked employees to sign no-suicide pledges. Workers were also required to sign a legally-binding document guaranteeing that they and their descendants would not sue the company as a