Guest Comments by Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM)
HONG KONG – On May 25, we and other pro-labor NGOs staged a protest outside the electronics manufacturer Foxconn’s Hong Kong headquarters to express concerns about the many suicides at its factories on the Chinese mainland. Disgracefully, Foxconn shut its door on the protesters while calling security guards and the police to “receive” us.
Taiwan-owned Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, supplies many famous brands, like Apple, Dell, Nokia, HP and Motorola. Ten of its mainland workers have committed suicide within five months.
Yet Foxconn has trouble to reconsider its management methodology. It insists it doesn’t operate sweatshops and appears to lack sincere motivation for structural corrections.
Recently we did research outside a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. Most workers said they feel stress on the production lines. They aren’t allowed to talk to each other when working. Even those in the same production line can’t get to know each other. They’re isolated from each other.
Although overtime work at Foxconn exceeds 100 hours a month, the workers can’t afford to buy the products they make. To demand a living wage for the workers, we burned paper i-Phones. It’s a Chinese ritual to burn the effigies of real products as an offering for the deceased. We also marched around the building that holds Foxconn’s office.
Foxconn should probe reasons for the suicides, improve factory working conditions, facilitate the creation of democratic workers’ organizations, and invite labor NGOs for dialogue on its management methods.
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Students protest against unfavorable
conditions for electronics-factory workers.
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