From London Times
Suicide attempt prompts panic at Foxconn
Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent The spiralling suicide crisis at Foxconn appeared to be worsening last night after another employee of the electronics plant tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists.
The suicide attempt was made just hours after the death of a 23-year-old employee.
Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of a “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the vast factory in Shenzhen, southern China, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs for big-name clients.
The death today brought the toll among the company’s staff to 11 since January. The Times has learnt that Sony has begun “re-evaluating” the working environment at Foxconn.
With panic starting to show among Foxconn’s management, the company is understood to have asked employees to sign a pledge that they would seek medical help if they were ever overcome by suicidal thoughts.
The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.
The latest victim, like the nine other young employees who have committed suicide at the plant since January, leapt from the seventh floor of his dormitory.
The company has made hastily contrived efforts to improve conditions for its workers, the majority of whom stand in the same position for 12-hour shifts and receive the equivalent of about £90 each month in salary. Those measures include the use of “soothing” music on the factory floor, the recruitment of hundreds of dance instructors and the establishment of a suicide hotline.
Terry Gou, the chairman of Foxconn, is fighting hard to persuade the world that he is “certainly not running a sweatshop”. Hours before the latest death he had been touring the factory assuring staff that he was doing everything possible to avert more suicides.
He told reporters that he was unable to sleep and lived in fear that the next call to his phone would bring news of yet another death.
The plant’s astonishing productivity levels have attracted global clients such as Samsung, IBM and Sony, but labour activists have long alleged that the famous efficiency comes at too high a cost.
The attention given to Foxconn suicides relates less to the actual numbers and more to the apparent pace at which they have risen and that the victims have taken their lives in the same “copycat” way. If the suicide rate at the Foxconn factory matched the Chinese national average, the size of the workforce there would imply around 45 deaths per year.
The steep rate of increase in Foxconn suicides over recent weeks, though, has challenged the business model on which China’s manufacturing industry has grown. The company’s plant in Shenzhen is a city-sized complex set up to feed the global appetite for cheap technology.
Speculation that big brands might take their business away from Foxconn to protect their image are unrealistic, said one Tokyo-based electronics analyst. He said that consumers were no longer prepared to pay the sort of money it would cost to build computers, digital cameras and iPods without the productivity of companies such as Foxconn.
The company has previously claimed that the latest deaths were a symptom of deeper social problems in China, such as the widening gap between rich and poor. Ma Ai, the head of the Institute of Legal Psychology, China University of Political Science and Law, believes instead that the reasons are far more complex. The depression caused by factory life is in large part born of disappointment — the workers are young people who left the poverty of the provinces in the belief that a factory job would offer them a “city life” and enough money to enjoy a little of China’s economic growth. The reality they find is infinitely more grim.
At one level, said Professor Ma, Foxconn is in the grip of a form of “group hysteria” that has found its outlet in suicide. “People’s feelings are contagious, and can spread between each other quickly,” he said.
He added that a “hellish” mood was developing at the factory, where workers had lost faith in their employer and any sense of security. What you have now, said Prof Ma, “is a group of susceptible persons are living in nervous and depressing atmosphere”.
Suicide attempt prompts panic at Foxconn
Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent The spiralling suicide crisis at Foxconn appeared to be worsening last night after another employee of the electronics plant tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists.
The suicide attempt was made just hours after the death of a 23-year-old employee.
Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of a “mass hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers at the vast factory in Shenzhen, southern China, which makes digital equipment such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop PCs for big-name clients.
The death today brought the toll among the company’s staff to 11 since January. The Times has learnt that Sony has begun “re-evaluating” the working environment at Foxconn.
With panic starting to show among Foxconn’s management, the company is understood to have asked employees to sign a pledge that they would seek medical help if they were ever overcome by suicidal thoughts.
The fatalities come amid mounting condemnation of working conditions at the Taiwanese-owned plant and the decision of several of the company’s biggest clients — Apple, Dell and Hewlett Packard — to investigate how their products are being manufactured.
The latest victim, like the nine other young employees who have committed suicide at the plant since January, leapt from the seventh floor of his dormitory.
The company has made hastily contrived efforts to improve conditions for its workers, the majority of whom stand in the same position for 12-hour shifts and receive the equivalent of about £90 each month in salary. Those measures include the use of “soothing” music on the factory floor, the recruitment of hundreds of dance instructors and the establishment of a suicide hotline.
Terry Gou, the chairman of Foxconn, is fighting hard to persuade the world that he is “certainly not running a sweatshop”. Hours before the latest death he had been touring the factory assuring staff that he was doing everything possible to avert more suicides.
He told reporters that he was unable to sleep and lived in fear that the next call to his phone would bring news of yet another death.
The plant’s astonishing productivity levels have attracted global clients such as Samsung, IBM and Sony, but labour activists have long alleged that the famous efficiency comes at too high a cost.
The attention given to Foxconn suicides relates less to the actual numbers and more to the apparent pace at which they have risen and that the victims have taken their lives in the same “copycat” way. If the suicide rate at the Foxconn factory matched the Chinese national average, the size of the workforce there would imply around 45 deaths per year.
The steep rate of increase in Foxconn suicides over recent weeks, though, has challenged the business model on which China’s manufacturing industry has grown. The company’s plant in Shenzhen is a city-sized complex set up to feed the global appetite for cheap technology.
Speculation that big brands might take their business away from Foxconn to protect their image are unrealistic, said one Tokyo-based electronics analyst. He said that consumers were no longer prepared to pay the sort of money it would cost to build computers, digital cameras and iPods without the productivity of companies such as Foxconn.
The company has previously claimed that the latest deaths were a symptom of deeper social problems in China, such as the widening gap between rich and poor. Ma Ai, the head of the Institute of Legal Psychology, China University of Political Science and Law, believes instead that the reasons are far more complex. The depression caused by factory life is in large part born of disappointment — the workers are young people who left the poverty of the provinces in the belief that a factory job would offer them a “city life” and enough money to enjoy a little of China’s economic growth. The reality they find is infinitely more grim.
At one level, said Professor Ma, Foxconn is in the grip of a form of “group hysteria” that has found its outlet in suicide. “People’s feelings are contagious, and can spread between each other quickly,” he said.
He added that a “hellish” mood was developing at the factory, where workers had lost faith in their employer and any sense of security. What you have now, said Prof Ma, “is a group of susceptible persons are living in nervous and depressing atmosphere”.
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