The Case Foxconn quote here in its entirety an article written by Marco Tine and originally appeared on Insidethegame.it dedicated to Foxconn, the company that produces some giants of consumer electronics such as Apple, Nintendo and Dell.
in support of the article, the original version, there was a video that I have not considered essential to the understanding of the topic, and then I have not reported.
"Dying is the only way to prove that they existed.
Probably, for the workers at Foxconn
and for those of us who are called "nongmingong, rural migrant workers,
suicide China is simply to bear witness not to have lived at all, and that
living has only gone to the meeting despair. "
(From the blog of a worker, after the twelfth suicide Foxconn)
1.1 Introduction - Suicides in Foxconn In what myself, together with the staff of Inside the Game, believes is a gesture of responsibility by those who provide information related to the game, we dedicate this article to study the tragic events that occurred in Foxconn plant in China, giant electronics manufacturing in June 2007 which have followed the 18 deaths, including 15 suicide attempts sadly come to fruition in 13 occasions. The remaining deaths included cases of suspected murder. Foxconn's customers include Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard, but also Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo this juncture with the world of video games makes us think deeply about the 'hidden' costs of our fun, those that do not directly reflect on our budget later this month but affect the lives of those who work hard - and often in extreme conditions of dignity - to supply world markets for consoles, mobile phones, PC components and much more.
inquiring into the reasons for suicides (deaths but also closely related to the professional conditions in Foxconn), we will open little glimpses entrepreneurial thinking in the emerging powers like China, and issues related to possible ethical consumption for those of us who buy goods produced in the region.
1.2 Chronology of events June 18, 2007 - The 19 year old Hou, Hunan province, hangs himself in the bathroom of his dormitory. Two weeks ago, parents had expressed a desire to quit after picking up his salary.
September 1, 2007 - Liu Bing, 21, assigned to the unloading of heavy goods, died two hours after getting fired from Foxconn. The Southern Metropolis Daily attributes the death to excessive workload.
January 16, 2009 - Feng, a graduate 23 years old, jumps off the 14th floor of its factory, leaving a note: "Too much pressure at work - unstable emotions." To the young man had been denied the bonus of productivity.
July 21, 2009 - Sun Danyong, 25, a clerk at the factory in Shenzhen, it launches the window of his apartment on the 12th floor. Accused of having stolen a prototype of a 4G iPhone, Sun had been detained incommunicado by security personnel of the company, interrogated and beaten, while the apartment was searched. In his final hours, she confided to friends: "Knowing that tomorrow I will not be abused and used as a scapegoat I feel much better. " Apple has subsequently intervened on the issue, conducting a personal interview and require the supplier to a dignified and respectful treatment of its workforce.
January 8, 2010 - Bo Rong (age unknown) died by jumping from the roof of his dormitory.
January 23, 2010 - But Xiangqian, 19, was found dead at the bottom of the stairs of his dormitory at Foxconn. The two sisters accuse the company of having beaten to death ("There were scratches on his body - the chest was covered with bruises, mouth and nose, blood came out and had a big wound on his forehead), and local press speaks of his Transfer to clean the toilet after you accidentally damaged equipment. Foxconn denies any responsibility.
February 23, 2010 - Wang Linyang, 16, died in her dorm after a heart attack.
March 17, 2010 - Li, 20, launches from the fifth floor of his dorm after discovering that her savings were stolen.
March 29, 2010 - Tian Yu (age unknown) survives after being thrown from his dorm. He subsequently refused all contact with the press to clarify the circumstances of his act.
April 6, 2010 - Liu Zhijun, a graduate 23 years old, died after he jumped from the 14th floor of his dormitory.
April 7, 2010 - Leqin Rao, 18, attempts suicide by jumping from the seventh floor of his dormitory, but a tree softens the fall and saved her. Among the causes of action, extending the shifts to 12 hours and at night, fear of losing his remaining salary in the event of resignation.
May 6, 2010 - Ning, 18, dies after being thrown from the roof of a building company.
May 7, 2010 - Lu Xin, a graduate of 24 years, committed suicide by jumping from the sixth floor. According to friends, was suffering from delusions of persecution and was on the brink of psychological collapse due to excessive work pressure. Lu was a student of Liu Zhijun, who died in Foxconn April 6.
May 11, 2010 - Zhu Chenming, 24, dies after being thrown from the roof of a building company. The security cameras have taken over the terrible event, shown later by the national news.
May 14, 2010 - Liang Chao, 21, dies after being launched from the roof of a building company.
May 26, 2010 - Li Hai, 19, committed suicide by jumping from a building just 42 days after his appointment in Foxconn. Although the young have left a note of farewell to his father ("I am a man of no ability, I got what I deserved"), the police believe that there was no question of suicide.
June 2, 2010 - Yan Li, 28 year old, lost his life after a grueling round of 34 hours in the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen.
November 5, 2010 - An employee by name unrevealed falls from a building of the plant in Shenzhen losing their lives. Local authorities have confirmed the case but without detailed circumstances.
In analyzing this chain of tragic events, emerge common traits closely related: the young age of the victims, that they come from very poor rural areas, and then China, and accusations of exploitation inferred against Foxconn. This item is found not only in the last major testimonies of victims, but also in news reports national and local groups strongly objected to the protection of human rights.
1.3 Other cases of suicide in the professional sector (France Telecom) The process of industrialization in China is creating changes in the reality of working with the local youngsters face enormous difficulties. These are the same problems that Europe and America faced at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, and today they can look through the magnifying lens of the media offers a unique opportunity for comparison with today's reality. Between 2008 and 2009, for example, a series of 23 suicides in France Télécom shocked French public opinion triggering a significant process of self-examination: from socio-psychological studies revealed that until the late '80s, the people of France was its "social cement" right in the workplace and in the bonds that were created in it. The competitiveness of today, by contrast, tends to destroy these ties and create a sense of abandonment, in conjunction with any personal problems (divorce, friendships compromised and quant 'other), in the extreme can lead to suicide.
How soon we shall see in the section on working conditions at Foxconn, there are similarities such as to imply that even in the richest countries certain difficulties have not been entirely exceeded. 'S day today, what happens in the workplace influence the balance right individual in the deeper layers, and this is true anywhere in the world where you embrace capitalist models of development - regardless of ethnic and cultural differences.
1.3 Living conditions in Foxconn and testimonies from establishments Much of the work force of Foxconn is formed by so-called "rural migrant workers" ("nongmingong"), ie young people who flock from rural provinces in search of uses modern and profitable. They are generally more educated than their parents (sometimes even graduate) and willing to work hard to improve his condition, but still do not know how to trigger the change: for this reason, you have to industries such as "material gap" to be filled by field experience. The experience at Foxconn usually begins with a contract in which the employee agrees not to disclose to anyone the nature of their work, including dorm mates - a necessary measure at a company in which he often produce prototypes and new devices yet revealed to the market. For this reason, security personnel specially trained monitors each department of the plant and prevent any curious approach to their outer perimeter, with sometimes harsh methods that local police tolerate. According to a report
SACOM, work shifts lasting from 10 to 12 hours and take place in an atmosphere "tense and atomized," where in complete silence every worker repeats a monotonous pace frantic gestures. Department managers dictate the assembly time using a stopwatch and bitterly reproaching those who can not keep up. Here is the testimony of an anonymous worker made the institution China Labor Watch:
"We finish one step in 7 seconds, so you have to concentrate and work without stopping. We even faster machines. At each turn assemble Dell 4000 computer, always staying on their feet. We are able to evade these demands collective efforts, but many of us are on the verge of exhaustion. "
The company requires overtime only to address specific needs of productivity, but also many workers prefer to use to support a basic salary which amounts to only 900 yuan (106 euro). In an extraordinary regime imposed, there is no known upper limit for the overload zone. In the video above, a worker's complaint over 100 hours of overtime per month.
In the two-hour break at mid-day granted (not including the duration of the round), most workers can "eat their meals in the dorm to rest in time gained; others prefer to just get some fresh air outside departments. The same condition occurs at the end of the day, where the space for dialogue with their peers is minimized, in other words, a worker can work for several months in a factory Foxconn unable to get to know fellow dormitory. It should not be best for people who, together with other workers, he decided to rent a house outside of establishments, since the "nonmingong" are not recognized as citizens by local communities and therefore no access to basic public services.
The lack of links between the staff and the phenomenon of social exclusion to which employees are subjected configure a scenario in which the individual psychological will and the estate is put to the test. In the words of Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, "these young workers have the feeling that nobody cares about them."
In light of these realities, widely known in China as the international community, one may wonder why the youth of the place still continue to flock to establishments Foxconn. The reason is actually very simple: no matter how small, the Foxconn is always guaranteed salary is commensurate with the hours worked. This certainly reinforces the belief that workers in that company is the best place to accumulate savings, and the hope of one day being able to come out of the loop with enough money to fulfill their personal ambitions.
plastic knobs from 1.4 to 4 iPhone: What Foxconn As he likes to say the founder and president of Foxconn, Terry Gou Tai Ming, "it's easy to amass armies of thousands of men, but it is difficult find a single general. " And just with the title "General" that the international press used to refer to this enterprising Taiwanese manager, whose company is now the largest manufacturer of electronic components in the world. Gou's career began at age 24 in 1974, with requested a loan from $ 7,500 to his mother with the money bought two machines for modeling the plastic and opened a small business in a suburb of Taipei called Tucheng ("Dirty City"). The first customer was the U.S. Admiral TV, who commissioned the knobs for the selection of TV channels in his black and white. Then came agreements with RCA, Zenith and Philips that made Hon-Hai known in the U.S. (this is the original name Foxconn).
In 1980, Gou signed an agreement with Atari lucky for the production of connectors for the historic console 2600, and took the opportunity to record the technological creations of his company: to then, the manager had learned to write their names in English and was preparing to what we might call a real business, that companies from 32 countries visit the U.S. in a tour to 11 months in search of increasingly profitable. On that occasion, Gou traveled in a rented Lincoln asleep on several occasions in the back seat to contain costs. He ended up tearing a contract to IBM, and on his return to China, Hon-Hai share held by funding the creation of a huge complex in Longhua District of Shenzhen: was 1988.
The number of workers continued to grow, and Gou realized that it was necessary to combine a number of industrial facilities that could accommodate the workforce and provide for his needs: economic effort with a foreign competitor that no one would ever be implemented in a common territory, they built dormitories, laundries, cafes, medical and fire stations. Under the incredulous eyes of Western investors, the complex of Longhua reached record proportions of 3 km square shape as a sort of small city with an independent television network.
In the mid-'90s, the partnership between Compaq Foxconn and showed an incredible ability to Gou to organize work in their own works: the machinery from raw blocks of metal chassis for computers that are passed to the assembly lines, and were supplemented with power supplies, floppy drive and connecting cables. The client came therefore a product ready to host motherboard, CPU, memory and hard disk assembly procedures simpler and cheaper. This production technique, combined with the speed and low cost of manufacture, meant that companies like IBM, Apple, Dell and HP jumped on the bandwagon without thinking twice Gou.
Customers largely attributed the good fortune to conduct aggressive Taiwanese entrepreneur with which to carry on trade agreements. The main objective of Gou is to ensure that most of the components necessary for the production of any good done in Foxconn and other companies related to it. To do so, he is willing to assume financial burdens and risks of large-scale, as in the case of the iPhone 4: a metal production was so difficult as to require the use of a specific machinery manufactured by Japan's Fanuc, and is intended to prototypes . Not at all intimidated by the high cost of machinery (over $ 20,000), Gou took over more than 1000 individuals allowing Apple to start mass production of its smartphones.
1.5 Damage control: strategies and customer chairman Terry Gou Foxconn Gou's attitude is thus likely to cement in an almost indissoluble relationship of trust with customers, even in the face of tragedies such as suicides were talking about opening. For this reason, companies like Apple, HP, Sony and Nintendo I would ask Foxconn to improve working conditions for its employees, but are careful not to question their business relations with the Chinese giant. In such circumstances, what is the meaning and credibility of investigations initiated in recent months by certain principals of historical Foxconn, outrageous and beyond to avoid any accusations of inaction? Here's what Nintendo said the dawn of the fourteenth suicide
"We take very seriously the responsibilities arising from our role as a global company, and we adhere to a policy of ethics on the committee, the manufacture and quality of work. To ensure the accomplishment of our social responsibilities at our suppliers, we have established in July 2008, the 'Nintendo CSR Procurement Guidelines'. We demand that all partners in production, including Foxconn, adhere to these guidelines based on laws, international standards and related directives. "
More pithy response from Sony, in a press release reported:
" In response to Recent reports, Sony has begun to implement measures to re-evaluate working conditions in Foxconn. "
Assuming that companies have actually conducted checks on the sites indicted, why the 'public opinion is still at' Dark of their outcomes? Is it not the duty of information included in the social responsibilities of these manufacturers to their customers? The only answer in this sense came from Apple, which by the establishment of Shenzhen Foxconn sees reach all of its i-Devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac). The chairman Steve Jobs has personally visited the factories in China and then saying during a conference:
"You walk into this place and it is an 'industry but, cabbage, have restaurants and cinemas, hospitals and swimming pools. To be an 'industry, is rather good [...] Foxconn is not a factory of sweat [= American expression 'sweatshop', places of exploitation, ed] "
Michael McNamara, president of the American company Flextronic, believes that the 'working environment offered by the Chinese competitor is not at all among the most difficult, alluding to the fact that out of them there is even worse:
"I can not believe that there are no jobs worse than Foxconn, if someone does not like to work can always go on the street and find 10 other uses "
This is the total number of findings that the industry offered in connection with Western suicide Foxconn factories, where the chairman Terry Gou adopted several measures to counter the troubling phenomenon. In an interview with Bloomberg Newsweek, Gou has acknowledged that it had initially underestimated the problem considered unavoidable in an environment that is home to more than 800,000 workers, only after the fifth suicide was considered necessary to take decisive action. In addition to including in the factories of the counseling centers are open 24 hours on 24, the farm buildings are surrounded by networks were designed to deter more extreme measures. The visual effect, as you can see in the pictures accompanying the article, is quite alienating. Far more encouraging are the maneuvers on wages, increased by 30% in March (129.41 €) and even 66% in June (215 €), followed by plans to open new factories in Zhengzhou, in the rural province 's Henan Province, from which one fifth of the workforce of Foxconn. In doing so, Gou is hoping to bring his workers to the places of origin and their patients, but required both the 'intervention of the provincial government for the construction of dormitories [to take place, adding my
]
the same time' company has suspended due considerable compensation to the families of suicide employees, consisting of 110,000 yuan (about 12,000 €) which ended up becoming a paradoxical incentive to take his own life. In the contract, new employees now sign a clause in which they agreed - just think '- to stay alive. Among other initiatives introduced by Gou include a mammoth "Festival of Life" held in May, where famous actors and singers entertained the employees inviting them to rediscover the joy and value of life, and even the involvement of Buddhist monks who business premises freed from evil spirits.
1.6 The struggle for the rights of SACOM, movements of protest (protests in Chinese factories Honda) and new relationships The harsh living conditions of workers in Foxconn were brought to the attention general by two organizations, namely the SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate misbehavior, author of more in-depth report on the difficulties of rural migrant workers) and the observatory at Work China Labor Watch, responsible for events in Hong Kong in which he asked the company safeguard the rights and dignity of employees. To confirm the battle of the two entities is a joint publication of the Southern Weekly reports that in May, sent the young reporter Liu Zhi Yi within the factory of Shenzhen in disguise: in 28-day stay, the journalist could first-hand the hardships of staff providing much of the material found in this article, but most of the topics that can stir the conscience of Chinese workers. Following the wage increases
operated by Foxconn, other companies in Southern China have seen their workers cross their arms against employers: Honda plant in Foshan (the city where at this time, employees on strike en masse Foxconn el ' company tries to cover up the affair), the production was stopped at regular intervals by well-organized strikes, a phenomenon difficult to see in a country where the right combination of workers is not recognized. Big factories like the KOK in Kunshan (tire manufacturing) and Jiashian of Sanggang (electronic components) are been the subject of clashes between workers and police, claiming rights to the approval of which would be blocked by collusion between contractors and the Communist Party. In the face of repression, many young people choose to return to their countries of origin by implementing exactly what the Chinese businessmen are concerned, that is an escape of the workforce which can respond only by increasing salaries: these are signs of a change in the coming decades, profoundly affect the labor market and the whole Chinese society.
Ultimately, it is not surprising to see how the teachings of Karl Marx regularly taught in local schools are often cited by workers in protest: "Karl Marx was right," says Liu dechang, workers at factories Jiashian, "We should fight as it did in the 'Europe of the nineteenth century. Chinese factories are like those of Europe two centuries ago, and as Marx said, is only fighting against the capitalists that we will get our rights. "
1.7 Final Some answers may be assigned only to politics and history. But faced with a present that is so hard for the workers at Longhua, and numerous other plants from which our iPhone, our console and a large part of consumer electronics goods, it is inevitable question from consumers What attitude should be taken. On the other hand, the "need" more and more new gadgets and efficient is something inextricably to those who live in modern countries like ours, and very few would be willing to pay (much) more than they do today simply because a company conscientiously decided to move production to where working conditions are fair, equitable and sustainable. All this raises the ordinary citizen in the state can not do anything to change the status quo, beyond the actuator informed consumer and, where possible, free from waste day after day feeding an 'industrial shame the rights of others.
