Foxconn suicide toll rises to nine, harsh work conditions criticized

Like us on Facebook

Even as the Shenzhen City government has formed a task force to investigate whether the suicides show signs of the "Werther Effect" - a series of copycat suicides after a widely publicized case - with the number of suicides increasing proportionally to the coverage, according to several rights groups, Foxconn, which is a unit of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry and runs massive factory complexes in China, employing around 900,000 workers of which nearly half are based in Shenzhen, does not take security and welfare of its migrant workers seriously and forces them work under stressful and hazardous conditions while doling out meager wages.

New York-based worker's rights group China Labor Watch has alleged that Foxconn enforces "military-style administration and harsh working conditions," making its workers, most of whom are in their early 20s with little or no social support, labor for up to 12 hours at a stretch on highly-repetitive, assembly-line tasks without any break and sometimes the workers are forced to work even on weekends. The workers, the group said, have often complained to them that they are "extremely tired, with tremendous pressure." Li Qiang, the group's executive director, said Foxconn "tramples" workers' personal values for the sake of efficiency.

According to labor group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, Foxconn is notorious for enforcing harsh, military-style work culture to maximize output. "From our recent research outside a Foxconn's facility in Shenzhen, most of the workers agree that they feel stress in the production lines," the labor group said in a statement late Tuesday. "They are not allowed to talk to each other when working. Even in the same production line, workers do not have chance to get to know their colleagues."

Agrees a reporter of Southern Weekly, who spent nearly a month working undercover in the factory to find out its work conditions. Liu Zhiyi, the reporter, said Foxconn's workers rarely stop working except to eat and sleep, and that they need to put in grueling extra hours to supplement their monthly wage of $130. The workers, he said, would sometimes stand for eight hours but they have no choice. "If you don't work overtime, you don't make money," Liu wrote. "But if you take the overtime, the fatigue will make your whole body feel the pain."

Liu Kaiming, a Shenzhen-based expert in labor issues, said some reports on inhumane work conditions might be exaggerated but acknowledged that "in some isolated companies, you will never know what's happening there."

"To work in a big company, (with a campus) as large as a medium-sized city, they need the feeling of a family to handle the severe working pressure," the head of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, said. "The company cannot make these young people be just money-making machines."

According to industry analysts, the deaths could strain Foxconn's relation with its high-profile clients as nobody wants to buy a product that's associated with a facility where people take their own lives.

Edward Yu, chief analyst at Beijing-based technology research firm Analysis International, said Foxconn could suffer from a major "public relations problem" and, if the matter is not handled properly, it "will test some of the long-term relationships with the brands, like Apple and Sony."

Agrees Jenny Lai, an analyst at CLSA in Taipei. "This is really a public relations crisis for Foxconn," Lai said. "The key right now is for the company to get out there and reassure their clients that they have put in place a system that will ensure that any new cases are minimized."

Apple, Dell and HP spokesmen said they were shocked by the "tragic events" and are investigating the suicide reports. Most companies like Apple or HP set out guidelines on work conditions to their suppliers and if violated, terminate contracts with them.

However, some analysts feel that Foxconn's clients, though distraught, have little option but to keep the relationship going.

"They can't be happy about it," said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities. "They promote themselves as far as being forward thinking in terms of conscience - and this (suicides) is damaging to their reputation along those lines."

But Hargreaves said companies like Apple, Dell, HP or Sony have little choice because there are very few manufacturing companies like Foxconn that are capable of producing electronic products or computer components at a rate required to satisfy demand. Giving an example, Hargreaves said Apple sold 8.75 million iPhones in the last quarter alone and "if you want to build a lot of handsets and you want them to be competitively priced, you don't have a lot of options."

Some analysts also claim that the suicides at Foxconn facilities underscore China's growing labor problem.

According to Peng Kaiping, a social psychologist from Tsinghua, Foxconn's work conditions are not so different from those of other Chinese factories and "China is reaching a critical point where it cannot develop as it once did, taking advantage of cheap labor and not paying attention to workers' rights." Government data have revealed that China's annual average rate of suicides is 14 cases per 100,000 people and statistically speaking, the suicide rate at Foxconn is lower than the national average.

But that does not change the fact that Foxconn could possibly be enforcing military-style work conditions, which might have caused its workers to break down. According to Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin's Geoffrey Crothall, Foxconn is "obsessed with security" and "from the outside, the place looks like a prison."

Adding to that is the problem of high aspirations of the new generation of migrant workers, who come to big cities to live the Chinese dream but realize soon enough that it is just that - a dream. And, frustrations rise when these workers "go to glitzy shopping malls and see people their own age driving BMWs and carrying Louis Vuitton handbags," Crothall said.

Crothall has a solution: "The wages of these workers should be raised to decent levels so they won't feel they need to rely on overtime. That would give them time to socialise, relax and work through whatever issues they have."

Meanwhile, Terry Gou, founder and chairman of Hon Hai Precision Industry, one of China's largest foreign employers and the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, came out with a statement on Monday, saying Foxconn is not a sweatshop "that only goes after money and doesn't care about people's lives" and though "a team of 900,000 workers is very difficult to manage," the company was doing everything to improve life and work conditions of its workers. Gou said Foxconn takes corporate responsibility seriously and is confident that the company will be able to overcome this difficult phase. "I sincerely offer my apology to the victims and their families," Gou said. "We will try our best to take care of the employees. And we have confidence that we can do that."

Foxconn executives, who feel that suicides "is a social problem, not a management problem," said the company is planning to hire counselors, psychiatrists and Buddhist monks to offer psychological, emotional and spiritual support to the workers. While two thousand singers, dancers and gym instructors will also be hired to provide entertainment and help the workers keep physically fit, suicide hotlines have already been set up to help the distressed workers.

Xinhua, China's state-run news media also said the company is fencing off high suicide-prone locations to prevent workers from jumping to their deaths. Netting has been strung between the high-rise dormitories to catch anybody who tries to jump.

The move came after China Labor Watch demanded that Hon Hai "must initiate a thoroughgoing analysis of life on its production lines - not just roll out more superficial, short-term fixes."