A recent spate of deaths of workers employed by Foxconn—a
major technology manufacturer and supplier to Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell,
Sony and others—is drawing the ire of labor watch groups that find the living
and working conditions of Chinese factory workers to be tantamount to slave
labor. As eWEEK previously reported, eight
workers have died at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, in 2010 from presumed suicide after "falling"
off factory buildings.
Though the deaths have not been confirmed officially as suicides, it is widely
believed that suicide has occurred at the Foxconn facility. It is also believed
these suicides are begetting copycat attempts, as experts say such events often
happen in clusters, reported Time magazine. The deaths shine a light on the
physical and psychological damage young, migrant Chinese workers face day to
day in the factory ecosystem.
"The young workers—and the vast majority of the workers are young—have a
very hard life," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor
Committee, a labor advocacy group that has reported extensively on Chinese
factory abuses, including those of KYE Systems, a major supplier to Microsoft
and other technology companies. "All they do is work and sleep. These
young workers are just an appendage to the machines they work on. Each day is a
combination of deadly monotony and an exhausting race to meet the excessive
production goals. The work is mind-numbing. Also the workers are constantly
monitored as if they were in the military. Many factories, especially those
with Taiwanese owners, force the workers to do military-like drills at the
beginning and end of each shift."
Foxconn, owned by Hon Hai Group, a Taiwanese company, has stated publicly that
is getting things under control.
"It is very difficult to manage a manufacturing team of more than 800,000
people," CEO Terry Gou said to an economic forum May 24, according
to The Wall Street Journal. "There are many things to do every day. But we
are confident we will be able to stabilize the situation very soon."
What are typical work days like in these factories? Repetitious labor, followed
by more labor, and squalid dormitory living with little room for education or
socializing, given the turnover rates among factory workers
"OT is routinely obligatory and even if in some few cases it is not
mandatory, the workers feel compelled to put in the extra hours since that is
the only way they can survive," Kernaghan said. "No one could even
come close to surviving on the legal minimum wage—and here we are talking about
living in primitive company dorms and eating hardly edible institutional
cafeteria food. We have never met a worker in any of these high-tech factories
who believes they will ever enter the middle class. They have little or no hope
for their lives."
One big question is how American technology companies doing business in China
with suppliers such as Foxconn and KYE, using the cheap labor of Asian
manufacturing to help make their products profitable in the United States, perceive
the impact of the challenges faced by factory workers.
"I don't believe for a second that the multinational high-tech
corporations care about the young workers in China; that is not part of the equation," Kernaghan
said. "Apple, HP, Microsoft, etc., did not go to China because they like the people there. They are there
because of the low wages, the lack of benefits, the absence of independent
unions and NGOs, the complications that would come with a democratic
government. The companies are doing nothing concrete to protect worker rights.
"Microsoft and the other tech companies have demanded and won all sorts of legal
protections for their products—intellectual property and copyright laws—which
are backed up by sanctions. However, when we ask Microsoft if it would not be
critical to extend similar laws to protect the fundamental rights of their
workers, Microsoft and the other companies say, 'No. That would be an
impediment to free trade.' In other words, this is a game. The workers have no
legal rights. That is why HP, Apple, etc., developed corporate codes of
conduct, so they could claim they are struggling to protect workers' rights."
There are, however, worker protection laws such as minimum wage laws on the
books in China, but they vary from region to region and even from
districts within cities, and are often ignored completely, said officials at
the National Labor Committee. The wages are so low, labor advocacy groups say,
that workers feel compelled to work overtime to make money to send home to
families after paying for food and housing.
"In Guangzhou City, the minimum wage was increased in May to 1100 rmb
per month—approximately 93 cents an hour," Kernaghan said. "Before
the May increase, wages were 68 cents an hour. However, take-home wages can
drop significantly after deductions for dorm and food. The minimum wage in Dongguan
[where KYE is located] was increased from 770 rmb to 920 rmb per month, which
makes the current hourly wage approximately 84 cents an hour."
According to Time, roughly two dozen protesters advocated for higher wages and
worker rights outside the Hong
Kong offices of Foxconn the week of May 24. Time wrote:
"Foxconn says it has provided social options like libraries and sports for
its workers, and recently has prevented many more attempted suicides. But labor
activists argue it needs to make more fundamental changes, like paying higher
wages so that workers don't feel forced to work so many overtime hours."
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