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Chinese workers pay a price for no Labor Unions.
- Thread starter DOC
- Start date
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
The return of Gozer the Gozerian is Neigh?!?
~~ A giant rift in the earth opens up; flames and lava pour out, the smell of brimstone and sulfur fill the air. A deep, guttural moan erupts from the depths, as if the earth itself is suffering labor pains. Then Gozer The Gozerian rises up on blood-red wings, his body covered with effluvium consisting of decaying blood and maggots. He ascends toward the sky, opens up his bestial mouth...and starts neighing like a horse ~~
And all of earths citizens, who were just moments before quaking in their boots, start laughing at him.
ETA: So that this isn't entirely off topic, a whole bunch of people commit suicide when Gozer the Gozerian first appears, but it has nothing to do with labor unions (who secretly worship Gozer, anyway).
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Tsukasa Buddha
Other (please write in)
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- 15,302
That is why Wolfman needs to stay on the forum.
Also, I heard the Chinese eat babies, is that true?
Also, I heard the Chinese eat babies, is that true?
NewtonTrino
Illuminator
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2007
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- 4,585
Actually Foxconn has almost 500,000 employees.
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
I will say here that ten suicides at the same factory is something to be concerned over. I've been doing business in China for a long time, much of that consulting at companies that have equally large numbers of employees (or even higher). And none of them have this many employees jumping off their buildings in such a short period of time.
Motivations for suicide in China are often different than in the West. In the West, suicide is usually an act of desperation, coming from deep despair/depression. The person does it because they no longer want to live.
In China, while there are of course people who commit suicide for this reason, suicide also has very strong cultural/historic roots as a means of protest. The fact that these people are committing suicide at their place of work (instead of doing it at home) is a strong indicator that these suicides are intended as acts of protest, not acts of desperation.
This may not sound like an important difference, but it is. A person who commits suicide out of desperation/despair loses face, and brings bad fortune on their family. But a person who commits suicide as an act of protest can actually be seen as a hero.
This is one of the reasons why suicide rates for women are higher than for men in China (as I mentioned in a post above). There are many stories in Chinese history of women who's husbands were going to make bad decisions...so the wife committed suicide to protest, and force him to change his mind. These women are generally hailed as devoted, loving wives, who will sacrifice their own lives to prevent their husbands from doing something that they shouldn't.
In modern China, while this particular motivation wouldn't be a common one for suicide, a woman who's husband has been caught cheating on her may well commit suicide specifically to bring public attention to the man's acts, and to place him under a cloud of shame that he'll carry for the rest of his life.
The suicides at Foxconn are atypical, and should demand attention to determine the reason for them. But they shouldn't be viewed solely through a Western perspective, either.
Motivations for suicide in China are often different than in the West. In the West, suicide is usually an act of desperation, coming from deep despair/depression. The person does it because they no longer want to live.
In China, while there are of course people who commit suicide for this reason, suicide also has very strong cultural/historic roots as a means of protest. The fact that these people are committing suicide at their place of work (instead of doing it at home) is a strong indicator that these suicides are intended as acts of protest, not acts of desperation.
This may not sound like an important difference, but it is. A person who commits suicide out of desperation/despair loses face, and brings bad fortune on their family. But a person who commits suicide as an act of protest can actually be seen as a hero.
This is one of the reasons why suicide rates for women are higher than for men in China (as I mentioned in a post above). There are many stories in Chinese history of women who's husbands were going to make bad decisions...so the wife committed suicide to protest, and force him to change his mind. These women are generally hailed as devoted, loving wives, who will sacrifice their own lives to prevent their husbands from doing something that they shouldn't.
In modern China, while this particular motivation wouldn't be a common one for suicide, a woman who's husband has been caught cheating on her may well commit suicide specifically to bring public attention to the man's acts, and to place him under a cloud of shame that he'll carry for the rest of his life.
The suicides at Foxconn are atypical, and should demand attention to determine the reason for them. But they shouldn't be viewed solely through a Western perspective, either.
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timhau
NWO Litter Technician
Why is that disturbing? I've seen it called 'tragic' before, and I just don't get it. Is suicide more of a tragedy when a woman does it?
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
I'd consider it "disturbing" or "tragic" when a particular country creates an environment that causes one particular segment of the population to be far more likely to commit suicide. It isn't 'because they're women'...it is because it is so completely different from the rest of the world (no other country has this trend, according to all statistics I've found), and I'd feel that such a difference was "disturbing" or "tragic" if it applied to any clearly identifiable group (ie. if one country had an abnormally high rate of suicide among teenagers, or the elderly).
Not only is China the only country in the world with higher suicide rates for women than for men, China also has the highest rate of female suicides of any country in the world (while there are many countries, including Canada and the U.S., whose male suicide rates are higher than China's).
You don't think that it is "disturbing" or "tragic" that one particular culture, for some reason, causes a far, far higher portion of a particular group to commit suicide, than in any other country in the world?
timhau
NWO Litter Technician
In the rest of the world, that group is men, who in most countries commit the vast majority of suicides. I find it disturbing that this is apparently considered as some sort of an acceptable baseline.
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
When it is the norm in every country in the world except for one that more men than women commit suicide, then such suicides can't really be attributed to a particular cultural/political/social/environmental factor. I'm not arguing that male suicides are more acceptable; but it'd be very hard to make any kind of case that they can be blamed on anything other than general 'human nature'.
However, in the case of female suicides, only one country in the entire world has more women than men committing suicide. Therefore, there would appear to be definite, specific factors that are contributing to suicide, that do not exist in other countries.
Let's go back to the OP. Significantly more men are killing themselves in this particular factory, than in other factories of comparable size. That indicates that there are specific, unique factors contributing to those suicides. I therefore would consider those deaths to be "tragic" or "disturbing".
Moreover, it goes to issues of prevention. If suicide rates among a given population are pretty much the same as everywhere else, it indicates that there probably is not much that can be done to prevent it; it is 'normal'. Regardless of what we do, there will always be people who commit suicide.
But when suicide rates within a particular population deviate significantly from the norm, it indicates that those are, in fact, preventable. There is obviously some factor -- cultural, political, social, environmental -- that is specifically contributing to those deaths.
I think the fact that you don't consider it tragic or disturbing that women in China are driven to suicide at a rate far higher than in any other country in the world is, itself, disturbing. Not that people are killing themselves -- that happens all the time, and is sad, but is also a fact of life -- but that there are specific factors in China that are driving far more women to do this.
To put my argument another way -- there's nothing we ever do that will prevent all suicides, that will stop all people everywhere from taking their own lives. But when there is a particular population (men in a particular factory, women in a particular country, etc.) among whom suicide rates are much higher than anywhere else, that indicates that there is, in fact, action that can be taken, and changes that can be made, to prevent many of those suicides.
And knowing this -- that these significantly higher suicide rates are preventable -- makes those deaths "tragic" or "disturbing". Just as I consider it more tragic when someone dies in a car accident due to an entirely preventable/avoidable issue (a driver driving drunk, for example) than when someone dies in a car accident due to entirely random events (a blown tire that causes them to lose control).
Kevin_Lowe
Unregistered
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- 12,221
Well, that or something makes Chinese men commit suicide less than men everywhere else, so that women take the lead by default. Or Chinese men commit suicide in some way that doesn't get recorded (I believe it's suspected that many single-vehicle car accidents are in fact suicides but it's hard to prove), or the women everywhere else commit suicide in ways that don't get recorded, or maybe something else entirely.
I'm not dismissing the possible problem, just saying that we need more information than the mere fact that the recorded suicide rate is higher for women.
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
The suicide rate for men is 'normal' in relation to other countries...nothing indicating it is particularly low. And the overall percentage of women who commit suicide in China -- regardless of how many men do it -- is the highest of any country in the world.
soikins
Scholar
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- Jun 30, 2006
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- 90
I think psychologists call this phenomenon a "copycat suicide".
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide):
There have been media guides developed on how to report on suicides as to minimize the risk of copycat suicides. I wonder if the media reporting on these Chinese suicides are aware of them.
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Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
Well, maybe you want to keep an eye on the news of the Honda strike in China. There's a concern amongst labour heavyweights in China and Hong Kong, that if the holdouts don't cave in, they could see force used. The business press reports that everyone's back at work; the blogs and alternative news report that there are still holdouts.
It's a different China than in the past. They still don't have actual unions, but workers are starting to organize, and old line commies are torn between their historical support of unions and labour and their own self-serving interests. By moving to free market in many areas, they've almost mandated that to maintain some sort of semblance of being a worker's state, they need to allow worker's to unionize (or, to be more accurate, allow them to form their own unions outside of the rump national organizations).
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
Considering the much more serious issue of the recent rash of school murders (people breaking into kindergartens or primary schools and attacking/killing as many people as they can) in China, and how its been plastered all over the press, undoubtedly contributing hugely to the many repetitions, I really doubt it.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
After Spate of Suicides, Technology Firm in China Raises Workers’ Salaries
See? A spate of suicides is just as effective as a union.
See? A spate of suicides is just as effective as a union.
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
And on that note...in the company I was working for previously, the president of the company (a Chinese man) actually instructed his employees to make a union. It is an unofficial union (it has no legal status), but gives the employees the opportunities to talk together, coordinate their efforts, and deal with the management collectively, rather than having to do it individually. He took a lot of flack from other senior managers when he did this...but productivity and profitability have both increased since then.
soikins
Scholar
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy!
But seriously - I think it had more to do with bad press than with the suicides themselves. I don't think salaries would be raised without the press coverage. And, no, I don't have evidence for that
Wolfman
Chief Solipsistic, Autosycophant
My favorite response from their CEO was when he was visiting the factory, and when asked by Chinese media what he was doing to prevent this, he said that they were taking immediate action to put safety nets on the buildings, to catch jumpers.Post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy!
But seriously - I think it had more to do with bad press than with the suicides themselves. I don't think salaries would be raised without the press coverage. And, no, I don't have evidence for that
Nothing like a pointless gesture that entirely fails to address the underlying problems.