Foxconn Suicides
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The Foxconn suicides were a spate of
suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...
s linked to low pay and brutal working conditions at the Foxconn City industrial park in
Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...
, China, that occurred alongside several additional suicides at various other
Foxconn Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (), Trade name, doing business as Hon Hai Technology Group () in Taiwan, Foxconn Technology Group () in China, and Foxconn () internationally, is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational electron ...
-owned locations and facilities in mainland China. The series of suicides drew media attention, and employment practices at Foxconn—one of the world's largest contract electronics manufacturers—were investigated by several of its customers, including
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
and
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
(HP).


Events of suicide


Pre-2010

While 2010 was a notable year for the company in the number of suicides, preceding years saw suicides being reported as well.


2010


2011


2012

Additionally, 150 Chinese workers threatened suicide in protest on 2 January 2012.


2014


2016

Eva Dou of ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' reported the suicide of a 31-year-old night shift worker at Foxconn's production building in
Zhengzhou Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan, China. Located in northern Henan, it is one of the nine National central city, national central cities in China, and serves as the political, economic, technological, and educational center of the province. Th ...
on 18 August 2016.


2018


Response


Foxconn clients

Apple issued a public statement about the suicides, and company spokesperson Steven Dowling said " pple issaddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn... A team from Apple is independently evaluating the steps they are taking to address these tragic events, and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made." The statement was released after the results from the company's probe into its suppliers' labor practices were published in early 2010. Foxconn was not specifically named in the report, but Apple suggested poor treatment of workers in facilities that manufacture its products may include violations of labor laws, violations of Apple's own rules for suppliers, and child labor (workers as young as 14 could legally work in China through special programs around the time this report was compiled). Apple committed to the implementation of changes following the suicides, but in late 2014 news reports of labor issues at another factory of a Chinese supplier also surfaced.


Reports

The 2010 suicides prompted 20 Chinese universities to compile an 83-page report on Foxconn, which they described as a "
labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...
". Interviews of 1,800 Foxconn workers at 12 factories found evidence of illegal overtime and failure to report accidents. The report also criticized Foxconn's management style, which it called inhumane and abusive. Additionally, long working hours, discrimination towards
Mainland Chinese Mainland Chinese or mainlanders are Chinese people who live in or have recently emigrated from mainland China, defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC) except for Hong Kong ( SAR of the PRC), Macau (SAR of the PRC) ...
workers by their
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
ese coworkers, and a lack of working relationships were all presented as potential problems in the university report. A 2012 audit of Foxconn performed by the Fair Labor Association, at the request of Apple Inc., suggested that workplace accidents might be commonplace and that workers may consider overtime pay insufficient.


Crisis management

During the first two and a half months, which included six of the fourteen deaths from suicide, Foxconn took a "no comment" approach to their business crisis. This left them vulnerable to media attacks, allowing the media to fill in their own information about the suicides. Li and Xu made a statement, in their case study about the business' suicides, that "Foxconn's series of employee suicides were severe events in the mind of the general public, and its 'no comment' strategy led to a more negative perception of its reputation and severe consequences." After the sixth suicide, Liu Kun, a spokesperson for Foxconn, stated that they were handling the crisis. He also started using a "denial strategy" to avoid any blame for the suicides and instead directed the fault at "the victims and societal problems." One of the ways Foxconn started handling the crisis was to require that employees sign a waiver stating that Foxconn would not be made liable if any individuals were to die by suicide. This, however, caused more troubles for Foxconn and they eventually retracted the document. After they removed the waiver, they installed safety netting around the facility to prevent future suicides. Foxconn also implemented a pay raise from 950 yuan to 1200 yuan, but they in turn increased their quota by twenty percent as well. Lastly, Foxconn opened their doors to two-hundred journalists. Foxconn informed the writers that they were taking extra steps for the future; which included safety netting and more help hotlines for employees to be able to call.


Foxconn

The chairman of Foxconn,
Terry Gou Terry Gou (; born 18 October 1950) is a Taiwanese billionaire businessman and politician. Gou is the founder and former chairman and chief executive officer of Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics. Founded in 1974, ...
, made the following statement at a press conference focused on the controversy: "We are certainly not running a sweatshop. We are confident we'll be able to stabilize the situation soon. A manufacturing team of 800,000 people is very difficult to manage." At the time of the company's press conference, the factory complex where the deaths occurred employed up to 300,000 people. In response to the suicides, Foxconn substantially increased wages for its Shenzhen factory workforce, installed suicide-prevention netting, brought in Buddhist monks to conduct prayer sessions and asked employees to sign no-suicide pledges. Workers were also required to sign a legally-binding document guaranteeing that they and their descendants would not sue the company as a result of unexpected death, self-injury or suicide.


Protests

In May 2010, the Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) group held a protest in the lobby of Foxconn's
Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
headquarters. Around 25 protestors laid mannequins to rest and conducted funeral rites, while a spokesperson informed the media and onlookers: "We are staging the protest because of the high death rate t Foxconn with an abnormal number of workers committing suicide in the past five months". Activists from the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions were also present and held signs that read "Foxconn lacks a conscience" and "Suicide is no accident". They also burned cardboard cutouts resembling iPhones. The family of Ma Xianqian, one of the dead workers, protested outside the Foxconn factory. On 28 May 2010, demonstrators protested outside Hon Hai's Taipei headquarters laying flowers for those who had died at the Foxconn plant. Taiwanese unions and labor activists were also present at the Taipei protest and displayed banners that displayed Chinese text that translates into English as: "For wealth and power—physical and mental health spent, hopes lost" and "For profit of the brand—youth spent, dreams shattered". On 8 June 2010, the date of Foxconn's Annual General Meeting, student protesters from SACOM, Hong Kong labor unions and rights groups demonstrated outside a Hong Kong Apple store. A small group of young organizers picketed at an Apple store in San Francisco on 17 June 2010. The protesters carried placards showing the names and ages of the dead workers.


Analysis

''
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' asserts that although the number of workplace suicides at Foxconn was large in absolute terms, number of people who died by suicide at Foxconn factories was lower than the overall suicide rate of China. Steve Jobs has asserted that it is lower than the rate of suicide for the US. According to a 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, China had a high suicide rate with approximately 22.23 deaths per 100,000 people. In 2010, the company's employee count was a reported 930,000 people. Labor activists stated the suicides supported their assertion that numerous labor abuses take place at Foxconn. Economic conditions external to the company also might have been influential; during the same year, several major
strike action Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Str ...
s at other high-profile manufacturers occurred in China, and the Lewis turning-point is a macro-economic factor that might provide context for the events. If the above factors are true, it shows that there could be inconsistency between Foxconn's labor conditions and any progress in China's economy. However, one expert claimed that employees were treated comparatively well at Foxconn. Boy Lüthje, of Germany's Institute of Social Research, told ''The'' ''Economist'' that the company pays a minimum monthly wage of 900 yuan (US$130) as well as providing free recreational facilities, food, and lodging for employees at some of its factory complexes. Overtime, however, may be routinely demanded.


Legacy

The Foxconn suicides have become the basis of works including the song ''Chairman Gou'' by James Supercave. The song mentions two persons involved in the incident, Chairman Terry Gou and Lu Xin. The content of the song is specifically referencing the suicide of 24 year old Chinese rural
migrant worker A migrant worker is a person who Human migration, migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have an intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work. Migrant workers ...
Lu Xin, who committed suicide at the Shenzhen factory on 6 May 2010, certified dead onsite. By the end of May, CEO Terry Gou brought in psychiatrists to offer advice to depressed workers over phone and installed "safety nets" to deter employees from jumping off a building. This is reflected in the lines "Hire a hundred telephones/To talk the kids out of meaninglessness" and "Pay the right man to build a suicide net".


See also

*
Labor relations in China As the economy of the People's Republic of China has developed, issues of labor relations have evolved. Prior to the Chinese economic reform, Chinese citizens were only allowed to work where they originated from. Since 1978, when China began l ...
* 2010 Chinese labour unrest * France Télécom staff suicides * Suicide in the People's Republic of China * Xu Lizhi


References


External links


Sacom.hk ''Workers as Machines: Military Management in Foxconn.''
Report from Hong Kong-based non-profit Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM)
Deconstructing Foxconn
video from
Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public university, public research university in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Established in 1963 as a federation of three university college, collegesChung Chi College, New Asia Coll ...
professor Jack Qiu
1 Million Workers. 90 Million iPhones. 17 Suicides. Who's to Blame?
March 2011 cover story of ''Wired'' magazine {{DEFAULTSORT:Foxconn Suicides Foxconn people Labor relations in China Suicides in the People's Republic of China 2010 in China 2011 in China Lists of Chinese people 2012 in China Lists of deaths in 2011 2013 in China Lists of deaths in 2010 Lists of deaths in 2012 Lists of deaths in 2016 2016 in China Lists of deaths in 2013