Suicides rise as Chinese workers feel the pressure (News Feature)

By Andreas Landwehr May 25, 2010, 10:45 GMT

Beijing - A spate of suicides at the world's largest electronics factory in China has shed light on the harsh working conditions behind some of the West's favorite consumer goods.

The workers who make Apple Inc's iPhones or Sony Corp's Playstations for Foxconn Technology in Shenzhen, south-eastern China, live isolated in factory cities, far from their families.

But hardest thing to live with is the lack of future prospects, social scientists and activists say.

Nine employees at the factory have died in apparent suicides this year after falls from the factory roof. Two others fell or jumped from the roof but survived, news reports said.

The suicides have drawn attention to the operations of the Taiwan-owned manufacturer, whose staff live and work within the confines of sprawling factory cities.

The controversy over their working conditions has damaged the reputations of global brands such as Apple, Sony, Dell Inc, and Hewlett-Packard Co, all clients of Foxconn.

No other country produces and exports as much as China, earning it the moniker 'workshop of the world.' More than 100 million migrant workers supply its factories with a constantly replenishing stream of labour.

Reacting to the suicides, nine Chinese social scientists have published an open letter about the plight of the workers, particularly the younger ones.

Young men from rural areas have few options other than to move to the cities to look for jobs, often poorly paid and with few if any future prospects, the letter said.

'The moment they realize there is little possibility of building a home in the city through hard work, the very meaning of their work collapses,' the letter added. 'The path ahead is blocked, and the road to retreat is closed.

'Trapped in this situation, the new generation of migrant workers faces serious identity crisis and, in effect, this magnifies psychological and emotional problems,' the scientists warned.

They recognized that China's development strategy for the past 30 years has accomplished an economic miracle, but stressed it has also 'deepened regional inequalities, prolonged stagnation of wages, and deprived migrant workers' citizenship and human rights.'

Activists put the blame for the Foxconn suicides above all on the harsh working conditions. 'The company must initiate a thoroughgoing analysis of life on its production lines,' the New York-based organization China Labor Watch (CLW) said in an online report.

'We are extremely tired, with tremendous pressure,' workers from one of the computer assembly lines were quoted as saying. They have seven seconds to complete each step, and often finish 4,000 computers per day, all the while standing up.

Seventeen of the 25 workers interviewed by the non-profit organization said the suicides were due to the high work pressure.

Working days are officially between eight and 10 hours, with two one-hour breaks. Overtime is typically one or two hours per day, the CLW report said.

They have one day off per week, and time spent attending compulsory staff meetings at the start and end of each day is unpaid.

Workers receive the minimum monthly wage of 900 yuan (132 dollars), 7.8 yuan per hour for overtime on weekdays, 10.34 yuan per hour at the weekend.

CLW executive director Li Qiang sees several possible factors behind the suicides, such as 'Foxconn's military-style administration and harsh working conditions, Taiwan administrators' disrespect for mainland workers, and management strategies aimed at the creation of only short-term jobs,' the report said.

A video released in August of black-clad supervision personnel beating workers at Foxconn's Beijing factory caused widespread outrage.

Taiwan media have called for a code of behaviour to prevent exploitation of mainland workers by Taiwan employers, who suffer from a poor reputation in China.

Foxconn staff also complained of a lack of personal relations between the employees, who mostly live in accommodation blocks on the factory premises.

These miniature cities boast supermarkets, restaurants, bookshops and internet cafes. The Shenzhen plant, site of the recent suicides, is home to over 300,000 workers, who live there completely isolated, without any social networks, hardly knowing each other.

'We spend our free time mostly sleeping and surfing the net,' one female worker was quoted by the China Daily as saying. 'We don't go out much.'