Suicide protest by Foxconn workers in China
Wuhan, China January 2nd: workers spent 2 days on the roof of the factory threatening to commit suicide by leaping off in protest at the appalling working conditions and brutal treatment of the young workers by a military style of management facilitated by the Chinese dictatorship and enabling fine profits for major Western corporations. The Wuhan factory is thought to produce the Xbox 360 for Microsoft as well as Apple products.
According to the Telegraph “Foxconn, which manufactures gadgets for the likes of Apple, Sony, Nintendo and HP, among many others, has had a grim history of suicides at its factories. A suicide cluster in 2010 saw 18 workers throw themselves from the tops of the company’s buildings, with 14 deaths.” After international outrage Foxconn installed safety nets, promised to increase the low wages and improve conditions. Although no improvements materialised Foxconn are planning to Replace workers with up to a million robots.
The Telegraph have reported that the workers were put to work without any training and paid on a piecemeal basis: The latest protest began on January 2 after managers decided to move around 600 workers to a new production line, making computer cases for Acer, a Taiwanese computer company. “We were put to work without any training, and paid piecemeal,” one of the protesting workers told The Telegraph “The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin on our hand was black. The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it,” he said. The workers went on strike in protest. The management gave an ultimatum to return to work or leave with a months wage for every year they had worked, only for Foxconn to renege on the deal -sparking the rooftop protest with hundreds threatening to throw themselves to their deaths. They were eventually talked down.
Microsoft, the owner of the Xbox 360 brand, issued a statement claiming to be “committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy.”
Corporations like Microsoft and Apple depend on the ruthless exploitation of Chinese workers in sweatshops like Foxconn’s. With the popularity of iPads and iPhones, Apple’s profit rate has risen to 30 percent in recent years, compared with 1.25 percent for Foxconn. In the first half of 2011, Foxconn recorded a net loss of $17.65 million, whereas Apple exceeded Exxon Mobil with the world’s largest market capitalisation.
Apple is the first technology company to join the Fair Labor Association. The Washington-based FLA was set up in 1999 to monitor workplace environments globally in an initiative by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and its board members include Nike Inc. (NKE) and Adidas. Apple also released its annual suppliers’ audit yesterday. Van Heerden, of the FLA, said growing scrutiny of global companies by investors and consumers means they are more likely to insist suppliers introduce best practices in countries where governments are unwilling to do so. “If you’re a 16-year-old girl in a developing country, your best chance of enjoying proper rights is if you get to work at a multinational,” he said. “The power of their contract is more powerful than the power of law.” White collar criminologist William K Black writing on AlterNet says the report shows “anti-employee practices as common as iPods” Apple’s Foreign Suppliers Demonstrate Widespread Scamming and Horrific Abuse of Employees. According to Geoffrey Crothall of workers-rights group China Labour Bulletin independent monitoring is no the panacea to problems in China’s factories: “The problem isn’t whether or not they do audits, but whether workers are treated in a reasonable manner,” he said. “What the workers need is an effective voice in the workplace.” Something the employers in China, with deteriorating exports, a collapsing real estate bubble, and tightening credit, will increasingly resist.
