Guest Comments by Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM)

HONG KONG -- Under mounting pressure from labor-rights groups and concerned scholars, directors of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) expressed sadness about recent worker suicides at Foxconn in China.

The eight-member board, with representatives from IBM, Dell, Jabil, STMicroelectronics, Cisco, Intel, Flextronics and HP, formed a task force to study factors affecting employee health and welfare at their facilities and those of their suppliers.

But the EICC board failed to “invite” its members Foxconn and Apple to attend a phone conference with concerned civil-society organizations. We believe the EICC, in effect, protects these enterprises from taking direct responsibility for the suicides of young workers.

A company-only industry association (with 42 members by last December), the EICC formed in 2004 after international anti-sweatshop campaigns targeted technology brands. To deflect criticism, it published a voluntary code of conduct that focuses on labor, health and safety, ethics, the environment and management systems.

Business interests within the EICC network appear to discourage serious questioning of its failures to take corporate social responsibility.

We demand open, on-site access at Foxconn’s Longhua and Guanlan plants in Shenzhen and its other facilities in China’s north and interior provinces. A research team of academics, mainly from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, seeks to examine the management methods and dormitory conditions at Foxconn and to prepare a comprehensive report for public release.