Suicide wave hits Taiwanese iPhone manufacturer Foxconn: 10 dead

BEIJING (BNO NEWS) -- Another employee of Taiwanese tech firm Foxconn committed suicide on Friday, the 10th employee to do so in just several months, Chinese state-run media reported on Saturday.
21-year-old Nan Gang climbed to the top of a four-story factory building in Foxconn's industrial complex in Longhua Township, in south China's Shenzhen city, at around 4 a.m. local time on Friday. He jumped about 37 minutes later, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Article

Do you ever stop and think how some of the products you enjoy every day came to be in your hands? What the people that are manufacturing those products go through? I can't imagine having to work in conditions that would lead me to rather end my life than continue on working. Stories like this are always there, but we are blinded by the shiny new gadget.. the new fad. What are things worth to you, and are they still worth it, even reading of conditions that these workers live and work in?

reply to post by broahes


They seems to be in a simialr position to catch up with France Telecoms suicide rate.. last I heard they had suffered 24 deaths due to stress.

Is it something in the Telecoms industry stretching from the East to West that puts workers under so much pressure and stress they committ suicide?

Was this manufacture or just sales and service?

I kinda wonder if the cumulative effect of the stuff phones put out- not to mention the chemicals, materials, ect ect ect... are affecting certain people (plus stress and other factors, which I know for a fact weakens a person pretty badly).

[edit on 22-5-2010 by wylekat]

reply to post by wylekat


The first suicide was of a young lady that worked in shipping the products. Foxconn is a manufacturer.. and at lest two of the others worked in actually assembling the products.

That is an interesting theory about chemicals and materials possibly being tied to the deaths. That is something surly I should look into. Thanks for the reply and insight.

reply to post by wylekat


A bit more details on France Telecoms issues..

www.businessweek.com...

I got it wrong, from this source 34 have killed themselves since Jan 2008..

I personally think the real number of workplace suicides is masked from East to West and only occationaly do things like the one the OP reports and France Telecoms come to light..

i think working on a fast moving lawnmower assembly line can get soemone to kill themself but this? interesting.

There are many things that factor into this. Not just stress from the job but social and domestic are even greater. With the one child policy coupled with mom n pop not thinking of retirement other than thier child, pressure can become to great.

High tech/joint ventured factories working and living conditions a not as bad as you might think. Unlike the sweat shops that pay little and work 16-18hr days 6.5 days a week, the high tech's a different. Working 8-10 hrs a day 5-6 days a week depending upon the company. They pay by position and years just like the western world. However they also get housing, utilities and food provided. Shenzhen is next to Hong Kong and has high pay but also high cost of living. Personally I could make 20-30k RMB per month in Shenzhen but everything would double in cost also, no thanks.

Now most likely he had been working extra hours (optional) for more pay, mom n pop demanding 80-90% of his earnings plus social life in the trash can. You see it all the time and they wonder why these young workers kill themselves. The social problems here run deep and cultural and its not going to change anytime soon.

On another note most of the workers, though educated, come from farms and villages. They have a village mentality trying to survive in a concret jungle. Unfortunately the two do not mix well.

Something not mentioned is that the number of deaths is in line, or slightly below in fact, the national suicide rate.

quote
"The World Health Organisation quotes China's suicide rate as 14 per 100,000 people in 1999 and some believe that an underestimate. A study published in the Lancet in 2002 put the rate at 23 per 100,000 people; in comparison, the UK saw 17.7 suicides per 100,000 men in 2008 and 5.4 per 100,000 women." - guardian

They employ 300,000 people, so a figure of around 42 suicides for the year would be average - which is crazy to think! plus as already mentioned, added pressure from the company etc and working conditions would probably add to the suicides. Not to mention copycats.



[edit on 22-5-2010 by the_chilla]

I think I would start wondering if these "suicides" are actually that.
Is there more to this? Could their employer want to keep something quiet?

Long awaited update:

TAIPEI - Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry plans to raise workers' salaries by about 20 percent at its Foxconn unit in China, as it struggles to stop a spate of worker suicides and quell rising public anger.

An employee of Foxconn, maker of Apple Inc's iPhone, jumped to his death late on Wednesday, bringing the total of such apparent suicides to 10 this year.

Another employee attempted to slit his wrists, but survived with medical attention, Xinhua news agency said late on Thursday.

Source

www.independent.co.uk...

Apple boss Steve Jobs has taken a different view.

Speaking at a technology conference in California yesterday, he suggested that the Shenzhen plant was anything but a sweatshop. "You go in this place and it's a factory," he conceded. "But my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it's pretty nice."

The problem with company bosses, higher management and other corporate drones is that they are either completely brainwashed or the company IS their entire life and love!

What use is Movie Theatres and Swimming pool to a man supporting his family... How will staying in work an extra two hours, to watch a movie, help relieve stress when you have just come off a 14 hours shift and have to be back in work in 10 hours time?

How will going for a swim stop your Boss from leaning over your desk and screaming obscenities at you and threatening your job?

All of these add-on’s to the factory are nothing more than PR... So that when the boss of Apple takes a stroll around the factory, the owner can say "look how great we treat our employees" and in turn the boss of apple can make transparent comments such as the one quoted at the start of this reply.

What people need is Respect, Time and Money!!!

Humans all deserve to be treated with respect, regardless of their position within a company... Humans need time. Time to socialise with their loved ones and take the Children to the park after school. Humans need money, not the grotesquely vast sums that directors and CEO bathe in, but enough to support their families and have a little tucked away in case of an emergency.

The corporate drones know this... but they don’t care.

Trust me i know... i worked for 20 years in the corporate world and they are scum.

Whenever a company announces a new policy to help employees there is always a hidden agenda/motive.

My old firm once announced how they was going to concentrate on work life balance and wanted to encourage people to spend more time with their families... For a while, it was good... The managers (of whom i was one) were told that if our staff had worked hard and had finished their work load, we could allow them to leave early.

We were told to encourage stress breaks and to not question toilet breaks... We were asked to not openly criticise staff in front of others and to instead go to a meeting room for a private chat...

This was all good and positive...

6 months later the company won an award for "best working conditions"

Less than a week passed and we (the managers) were called to a meeting. We were told that people were taking too many breaks... People should not be allowed to leave work early... discipline had slipped... etc...

During this meeting i interrupted the speaker and said "ok ok so you’ve got your award and you want to go back to the bad old days right?"

The whole room went quite, managers dropped their heads, and the Boss, who was the one talking, looked me in the eye and said "Yes, but we need to spin it differently"

I replied "There is no way to spin this, it sucks"

I was then basically told "if you like your job shut your mouth"

From that moment on my card was marked... but i never complied... i couldn’t... I cannot treat people like dirt just because I want to save my own skin... Before that day my career had flourished... i had received 4 promotions in as many years and always got the highest score in my appraisals... After that day i received the lowest scores. I was continually pulled aside for chats... Things that would be laughed at before, would suddenly become a big deal... I was even pulled up for speaking to the cleaners...
Basically i was being bullied. I became ill, depressed and my sickness level went up, which simply gave them more ammo!

This continued until i was made redundant... but i never dropped my principles...

And the sad irony of it all is... while they were practicing better working condition and encouraging work life balance... productivity was up!!!
Oh... and there was 3 suicide attempts at that one office that were related to the job!!

Now this was all in a modern western office with people on good pay... I can only imagine the type of psychological torture that goes on at factories in China, India etc...

And the saddest thing of all is that people will still go out and buy an I-phone... proclaiming “but i really need one”

To quote a couple of lines from my favourite film...


Solara: What was it like before?

Eli: People had more than they needed, people didn't know what was precious and what wasn't, people threw away things they kill each other for now.





[edit on 3-6-2010 by Muckster]