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The long wave of suicides and bad press is what what made Foxconn known in the western world. They were introduced "...as an industrial monster that treats workers like machines, leveraging masses of cheap labor, mainly 18-to-25-year-olds from rural areas, to make products like the iPhone at seemingly impossible prices." This was in no part, the way Gou wanted to make his mark on the western world. Most Americans had never even heard of Foxconn before the wave of suicides and explosions, even though they make most Apple, Nintendo, and Intel products.
Sweatshop
Some of the biggest complaints from the workers are the long hours, forced overtime, bad cafeterias and low wages. The biggest is the forced overtime. Forced overtime isn’t the supervisors actually forcing you to stay and work, but there will be consequences if you don’t cooperate. There is a law in China that says you can only work 49 hours of overtime a week, but no one obeys this. Apple has a limit for all of their employees of 60 overtime hours a week. According to the FLA’s investigation even though the employees are paid only about 20% over the minimum wage, they say it is fair, but not enough to really be able to survive outside the factory. Everyday the employees get two, one hour long breaks for food. If they have extra time after they eat they can relax, or get a few minutes of sleep back at their work station. While according to ABC News many expected to see horrors inside the factory, the FLA said the conditions of the factory did not qualify to be called a sweatshop. They did find the workers doing the same job over and over again all day, up to 3000 times a shift, and the food in the cafeterias wasn’t amazing, as well as the conditions of the factory, but nothing was so horrible to make Foxconn factories be called a sweatshop. Even Steve Jobs said Foxconn is “not a sweatshop.” Overall they are actually a very modern place, with no signs of child labor, at least in the Shenzhen factory in 2012. As far as overtime goes, they did see a lot of tired and overworked employees who were spending another full day working in the factory, but nothing that seemed to worry them.
Sweatshop
Some of the biggest complaints from the workers are the long hours, forced overtime, bad cafeterias and low wages. The biggest is the forced overtime. Forced overtime isn’t the supervisors actually forcing you to stay and work, but there will be consequences if you don’t cooperate. There is a law in China that says you can only work 49 hours of overtime a week, but no one obeys this. Apple has a limit for all of their employees of 60 overtime hours a week. According to the FLA’s investigation even though the employees are paid only about 20% over the minimum wage, they say it is fair, but not enough to really be able to survive outside the factory. Everyday the employees get two, one hour long breaks for food. If they have extra time after they eat they can relax, or get a few minutes of sleep back at their work station. While according to ABC News many expected to see horrors inside the factory, the FLA said the conditions of the factory did not qualify to be called a sweatshop. They did find the workers doing the same job over and over again all day, up to 3000 times a shift, and the food in the cafeterias wasn’t amazing, as well as the conditions of the factory, but nothing was so horrible to make Foxconn factories be called a sweatshop. Even Steve Jobs said Foxconn is “not a sweatshop.” Overall they are actually a very modern place, with no signs of child labor, at least in the Shenzhen factory in 2012. As far as overtime goes, they did see a lot of tired and overworked employees who were spending another full day working in the factory, but nothing that seemed to worry them.
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The First of Many
The first suicide in 2010, which started the long wave to come, was on January 23, at 4:30 am, where he was found dead in front of his high rise dorm building. It was 19 year old Ma Xiangqian who took his own life that night, by jumping from the building. He has only had his job since November of the previous year, but according to his sister, Ma Liqun, who also worked there, he hated his job. He worked the eleven hour night shift, seven days a week, “forging plastic and metal into electronics parts amid fumes and dust,” or that was his job until he was demoted last December to cleaning toilets, after a run in with his manager. His sister also claimed that “The factory was always abusing my brother...” In the month before he died he worked 286 hours, 112 of which were overtime and “...about three times the legal limit...” Even with all of the money he made from overtime, he only earn the equivalent of $1 an hour. Ma has left his poor village and traveled over 800 miles to work at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, where he shared a dorm with nine other workers, many of whose names he didn’t know. This was partly due to the fact that all he had time for was work and sleep, and didn’t do much more than that. According to his sister and parents he felt demoralized, especially after his manager would curse him out, which happened often. Foxconn claims to have started assigning counselors to any managers who are not treating their employees well.
As of June 2010 there had been 12 other suicides and attempts, eight men and four women, all on two Foxconn campuses in Shenzhen, each employing about 400,000 workers. All of the other suicides have had similar conditions, the victims were ages 18-24, they were all pretty new to the factory, and they all either jumped or fell from the building. Since these suicides Foxconn has increased salaries twice in the last five days, and they say that in three months the salaries could be could be almost $300 a month, over double what the employees were making a few weeks ago.
Why They Keep Coming
According to Geoffrey Crothall he thinks workers only keep coming for the money. “'They pay workers on time and for overtime according to the regulations, and that’s why workers always queue to work there.” At least at Foxconn they know their money is coming, unlike so many other places. As for 23 year old employee of Foxconn, Cheng says "conditions are much better than at [my] three previous employers" According to "Li Caihe, a 19-year-old from Gansu province, works a 12-hour shift attaching nine parts to the motherboard of a Nokia N90 handset." ‘It takes so much concentration, it was very stressful at first,' she says. 'I know I can go to a counselor, but I don’t think it will help. I’m pretty adaptable, and I can cope. When I speak to my parents, I try to sound happy. I don’t speak about my stress.'" Li is just working here for the money, she is hoping to move within the year and maybe open her own salon.
The New Generation
"Sociologists and other academics see the deaths as extreme signals of a more pervasive trend: a generation of workers rejecting the regimented hardships their predecessors endured as the cheap labor army behind China’s economic miracle.” Along with the deaths, tens of thousands of employees have quit, after just a few months of work. "They complain about military-style drills, verbal abuse by superiors and ‘self-criticisms’ they are forced to read aloud, as well as occasionally being pressured to work as many 13 consecutive days to complete a big customer order...” The new generation has trouble adjusting the factory life, so they decide to leave instead of wait it out. They just don’t want to work in a factory or on a production line anymore. Many of the younger employees feel this way, but Ma just had a very extreme way of showing it. "Li Xiaofeng, a 20-year-old from a farm in Hunan province, joined Foxconn in May 2009...Her generation, she says, is far less accepting of long hours, low pay, and verbally abusive managers. 'Youth, especially those born after 1990, have a lot more enthusiasm and passion but are easily depressed once they meet obstacles,' explains Li. 'We are less able to endure suffering.'” "'Yelling is not the only way,' says Woo. 'The new generation of workers is changing in China, and Foxconn is changing to meet this new reality.'" This generation complains more about the cockroaches and when the water goes off than anything else.
The first suicide in 2010, which started the long wave to come, was on January 23, at 4:30 am, where he was found dead in front of his high rise dorm building. It was 19 year old Ma Xiangqian who took his own life that night, by jumping from the building. He has only had his job since November of the previous year, but according to his sister, Ma Liqun, who also worked there, he hated his job. He worked the eleven hour night shift, seven days a week, “forging plastic and metal into electronics parts amid fumes and dust,” or that was his job until he was demoted last December to cleaning toilets, after a run in with his manager. His sister also claimed that “The factory was always abusing my brother...” In the month before he died he worked 286 hours, 112 of which were overtime and “...about three times the legal limit...” Even with all of the money he made from overtime, he only earn the equivalent of $1 an hour. Ma has left his poor village and traveled over 800 miles to work at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, where he shared a dorm with nine other workers, many of whose names he didn’t know. This was partly due to the fact that all he had time for was work and sleep, and didn’t do much more than that. According to his sister and parents he felt demoralized, especially after his manager would curse him out, which happened often. Foxconn claims to have started assigning counselors to any managers who are not treating their employees well.
As of June 2010 there had been 12 other suicides and attempts, eight men and four women, all on two Foxconn campuses in Shenzhen, each employing about 400,000 workers. All of the other suicides have had similar conditions, the victims were ages 18-24, they were all pretty new to the factory, and they all either jumped or fell from the building. Since these suicides Foxconn has increased salaries twice in the last five days, and they say that in three months the salaries could be could be almost $300 a month, over double what the employees were making a few weeks ago.
Why They Keep Coming
According to Geoffrey Crothall he thinks workers only keep coming for the money. “'They pay workers on time and for overtime according to the regulations, and that’s why workers always queue to work there.” At least at Foxconn they know their money is coming, unlike so many other places. As for 23 year old employee of Foxconn, Cheng says "conditions are much better than at [my] three previous employers" According to "Li Caihe, a 19-year-old from Gansu province, works a 12-hour shift attaching nine parts to the motherboard of a Nokia N90 handset." ‘It takes so much concentration, it was very stressful at first,' she says. 'I know I can go to a counselor, but I don’t think it will help. I’m pretty adaptable, and I can cope. When I speak to my parents, I try to sound happy. I don’t speak about my stress.'" Li is just working here for the money, she is hoping to move within the year and maybe open her own salon.
The New Generation
"Sociologists and other academics see the deaths as extreme signals of a more pervasive trend: a generation of workers rejecting the regimented hardships their predecessors endured as the cheap labor army behind China’s economic miracle.” Along with the deaths, tens of thousands of employees have quit, after just a few months of work. "They complain about military-style drills, verbal abuse by superiors and ‘self-criticisms’ they are forced to read aloud, as well as occasionally being pressured to work as many 13 consecutive days to complete a big customer order...” The new generation has trouble adjusting the factory life, so they decide to leave instead of wait it out. They just don’t want to work in a factory or on a production line anymore. Many of the younger employees feel this way, but Ma just had a very extreme way of showing it. "Li Xiaofeng, a 20-year-old from a farm in Hunan province, joined Foxconn in May 2009...Her generation, she says, is far less accepting of long hours, low pay, and verbally abusive managers. 'Youth, especially those born after 1990, have a lot more enthusiasm and passion but are easily depressed once they meet obstacles,' explains Li. 'We are less able to endure suffering.'” "'Yelling is not the only way,' says Woo. 'The new generation of workers is changing in China, and Foxconn is changing to meet this new reality.'" This generation complains more about the cockroaches and when the water goes off than anything else.