Chinese workers pay a price for no Labor Unions.

[soikins]

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.

Nothing like a pointless gesture that entirely fails to address the underlying problems.

That depends on what the underlying problems are. They do not seem clear to me. If these suicides (or at least the way they are executed) are due to copycat effect, then the CEO had a sensible idea of how to deal with them. On the other hand, if they where caused by the poor working conditions or even lack of Labour Unions then he was indeed trying to deal with the effects rather than causes.

 

[Wolfman]

If these suicides (or at least the way they are executed) are due to copycat effect, then the CEO had a sensible idea of how to deal with them.

Ummm...the Chinese press was rather quick to point out that A) the jumpers could just go to other buildings, and B) they could avoid the nets by just jumping out further. Its not like someone who intends to commit suicide -- for whatever reason -- is gonna' jump into a net. I really don't see how this can be classified as a "sensible idea", except perhaps in terms of insurance and liability (he can try to claim that he took measures to prevent damage from jumping from his buildings).

 

[Aepervius]

Yes, but all of them jumping off the factory roof? That kind of sends a message, don't yout think? I wonder if they left notes behind though. If they were really pissed at the company, you would think they would. Of course, I doubt China would want those notes to be seen by anyone..

When you look around to see the reason using for suicide, it is normal that job (which take 8 hours of your day) come relatively high. As other pointed out such peak already happens in other firms or profession (see , remember the CT about 3 or 4 engineer suiciding at the same time near 9/11 ?).

Again there is nothing surprising or abnormal at first sight. I would like to see evidence that it is abnormal.

 

[soikins]

Ummm...the Chinese press was rather quick to point out that A) the jumpers could just go to other buildings, and B) they could avoid the nets by just jumping out further. Its not like someone who intends to commit suicide -- for whatever reason -- is gonna' jump into a net. I really don't see how this can be classified as a "sensible idea", except perhaps in terms of insurance and liability (he can try to claim that he took measures to prevent damage from jumping from his buildings).

A) They could also hang themselves and jump under a truck. Then they wouldn't be copycats, would they? In this case it seems that the place of death was important for the people who made the suicides.

B) Bigger nets, maybe?

 

[Foolmewunz]

I'm walking a thin line, here, so I will keep my posts to information that's available to the public,.... sort of. I know this company, know the factory and know their corporate offices.

(I'm anonymous on these forums because I am rather well known in my field and I'm particularly associated with some of the clients I handle, some for more than ten years. As long as I take my company's money, I will not say anything that would violate the terms of our various NDAs, but even if they're not in violation, various American/European big box importers would not take kindly to me posting some of my comments on China and Chinese logistics/labor, especially because I often use "unnamed large retailers" as an example. My name would be a giveaway to people in the industry as to which unnamed larger retailer I was referring.)

The provincial government announced this week that they intend to issue an adjustment to the minimum wage for factories. Upwards by 24%. Hon Hai announced last week a 20% increase. So their largesse at going to 30% doesn't represent that much - USD 17.10 per month.

This is greatly due to the negative pressure of the suicides. Their stock was taking a beating in the Taiwan shares markets, and HP and Dell and Apple launching investigations and sending teams over is HUGE loss of face.

Almost as important however, is the employment situation in the two most heavily industrialized provinces, Jiangsu and Guangdong. There are estimates that as many as 30% of the jobs are not being filled. Factories have traditionally just offered whatever the government told them they had to, and seemed to be sitting around scratching themselves, saying, "Gee, what could I do to get better/more applications. I've painted the fence, I've burned incense at the temple, I've given red pockets to my doorman. Surely I've covered everything?"

For the past two years, the net return of workers after the long Chinese New Year holiday has been very bad. Many just stayed home in their distant provinces. Working 12 and 15 hour shifts to barely make a net net of four or five hundred RMB per month was about what they could make fixing flat tires back home. And back home, they are with their families (never discount the importance of family to the Chinese).

By going above the provincial (proposed) minimum wage, Hon Hai buys itself face and buys its workers face (and gives face to the dead - which will go a long way with their coworkers). What they hope to do is to calm the situation, and additionally make a name for themselves as the flagship factory in the area where one would want to work.

There's also been a whole lot of Chinese noise in Taiwan over this. Taiwan is very sensitive to outside perceptions. They are the "good guys" to most westerners, and workers jumping off their roof was bringing embarassment to the island. There was a sympathy suicide at Hon Hai in Taiwan last week. I can think that the KMT called in the old man and had a little chat with him.

 

[Foolmewunz]

A) They could also hang themselves and jump under a truck. Then they wouldn't be copycats, would they? In this case it seems that the place of death was important for the people who made the suicides.

B) Bigger nets, maybe?

I'm not sure what you're arguing. The copycat aspect is not the jumping. It's the snuffing yourself on the company premises in somewhat a public fashion. Jumping was just the convenient way. (And it dates back more than six months. You can find reports of a jumper last summer at the same factory.)

 

[Lothian]

but you have to wonder, 10 jumpers in 5 months.

Too right. That is a very slow work rate. Even knitting by hand I would expect a jumper every 3-4 days.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Yes, but all of them jumping off the factory roof? That kind of sends a message, don't yout think? I wonder if they left notes behind though. If they were really pissed at the company, you would think they would. Of course, I doubt China would want those notes to be seen by anyone..

If this place is anything like the big factory i visited in Guangzhou for a job interview a few years back (making trainers and other things) then it will be a fairly isolated site where the workers live, work, sleep, eat and everything else on the site. You basically have a town of however many tens of thousands of people. If they want to commit suicide by jumping off a building then the factory would probably seem the logical place.

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.

The place I visited seemed very nice on the face of it. Probably very similar to this factory - it also had theatres etc. However, I couldn't help but think it would be a horribly depressing place to work. Most of the staff were fairly young women, no doubt living away from home for the first time, and they were literally placed in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the factory and associated facilites. I would imagine even if you were locked in a 5-star all inclusive resort for 365 days a year it would start to affect your mental condition.

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.

Copycat also occured to me. In a closed community like that its going to be likely to happen.

 

[Foolmewunz]

If this place is anything like the big factory i visited in Guangzhou for a job interview a few years back (making trainers and other things) then it will be a fairly isolated site where the workers live, work, sleep, eat and everything else on the site. You basically have a town of however many tens of thousands of people. If they want to commit suicide by jumping off a building then the factory would probably seem the logical place.

This one's not that isolated. It's a factory complex. Total population (of factory) approx. 380,000 persons. It's in Shenzhen, on public transportation lines, right next to residential and commercial zones. Population of Shenzhen 11,000,000. Even if you're limited to the factory area, you have 379,999 neighbors. Most of these people come from isolated communities around China, so that would be a lot.

While it's not isolated, it is a walled city within a city. Yet, the old days of workers having to stay in their enterprise zones (and needing passes to travel outside of said zone) are long since over. They have freedom of the city, essentially. Many workers who want to quit, just plain disappear.

The place I visited seemed very nice on the face of it. Probably very similar to this factory - it also had theatres etc. However, I couldn't help but think it would be a horribly depressing place to work. Most of the staff were fairly young women, no doubt living away from home for the first time, and they were literally placed in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the factory and associated facilites. I would imagine even if you were locked in a 5-star all inclusive resort for 365 days a year it would start to affect your mental condition.

Possibly, but when they first started moving across China to take these jobs, the facilities were ten times worse, the factories had "company store" economics going for them, and the workers were treated much much worse. Yet they put up with it because pro-rata, they saved up enough net earnings to send money home. Now the facilities are much better, as are the amenities, but the workers don't want to stay because they see no positive outcome. The bare pittance they can send home isn't enough to feed the wife or husband and/or kids and/or grandparents. Plus, there are smaller opportunities opening up in their home provinces.

Copycat also occured to me. In a closed community like that its going to be likely to happen.

Yes, already covered by several. But while we keep saying this, what are we all saying? Oh, these aren't real suicides? They were copycat suicides? Does that make the people less dead?

I mean, it's not like figure skating, where we're going to give extra points for sincerity based on an OQ (originality quotient). "Wow, Tom! Did you see that? Hong Lu just stuck his head into the vacuum sealer, encased himself in plastic, and asphxiated himself - turning blue and purple for our colour monitors. I'll give him 10 for originality, that's for sure!"

 

[Wolfman]

I mean, it's not like figure skating, where we're going to give extra points for sincerity based on an OQ (originality quotient). "Wow, Tom! Did you see that? Hong Lu just stuck his head into the vacuum sealer, encased himself in plastic, and asphxiated himself - turning blue and purple for our colour monitors. I'll give him 10 for originality, that's for sure!"

Well, you could rate them on style for their dive, how much of a splat they make, etc....

...but on a more serious note, I think that those who are bringing up the copycat thing aren't doing so to downgrade the seriousness of suicide; but rather to question if the suicides are actually because of bad conditions, or if they're because people are just copying each other. ie. would each of the people who committed suicide have done so had there not been others who'd done it before them?

 

[Foolmewunz]

Well, you could rate them on style for their dive, how much of a splat they make, etc....

...but on a more serious note, I think that those who are bringing up the copycat thing aren't doing so to downgrade the seriousness of suicide; but rather to question if the suicides are actually because of bad conditions, or if they're because people are just copying each other. ie. would each of the people who committed suicide have done so had there not been others who'd done it before them?

I hope you're wrong.

Are we seriously saying that people would kill themselves to get in with the in crowd? I think copycat killers have issues already, copycat suicides very likely the same. I mean, walking into a school and slashing forty or fifty people with a chopper is some pretty heady stuff. Similarly, walking up to the roof and jumping off a building says, at minimum, that you've got something on your mind.

 

[Wolfman]

I hope you're wrong.

Are we seriously saying that people would kill themselves to get in with the in crowd? I think copycat killers have issues already, copycat suicides very likely the same. I mean, walking into a school and slashing forty or fifty people with a chopper is some pretty heady stuff. Similarly, walking up to the roof and jumping off a building says, at minimum, that you've got something on your mind.

I'm not saying I agree with such an argument...but think of it this way.

We have two people who are depressed/upset/angry/whatever with their job...they are identical to each other in every possible way (they will think/react the same way to any event). One of those people works in a factory where nobody has committed suicide, and where several people who were similarly depressed/upset/angry quit their jobs in a very public manner. The other one works in a company where several other people who felt similarly depressed/upset/angry committed suicide.

I think it is a reasonably arguable point that the second person would be more likely to commit suicide than the first one would...simply because that particular option is more at the forefront of their mind. Add to that the possible feeling of powerlessness, that nobody notices them or cares about them...and seeing how those who committed suicide, while unarguably dead, did get a lot of attention (and sympathy) after doing so...and I could see a decent argument being made that people in such an environment will be more likely to copy what others have done before, and kill themselves, when they would not have killed themselves if such an example had not already been set.

 

[soikins]

I hope you're wrong.

Are we seriously saying that people would kill themselves to get in with the in crowd? I think copycat killers have issues already, copycat suicides very likely the same. I mean, walking into a school and slashing forty or fifty people with a chopper is some pretty heady stuff. Similarly, walking up to the roof and jumping off a building says, at minimum, that you've got something on your mind.

A lot of people have suicidal tendencies, but not all of these people make suicides or even attempt to make them. There are many long-term factors involved. Nevertheless something has to trigger the suicide attempt. "Social proof" can be one of such triggers (see. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof)

I'm not sure what you're arguing. The copycat aspect is not the jumping. It's the snuffing yourself on the company premises in somewhat a public fashion. Jumping was just the convenient way. (And it dates back more than six months. You can find reports of a jumper last summer at the same factory.)

I am not arguing that, for example, placing the safety nets would stop these people from making the suicides in the long run (after other triggers and using other methods sometime in the future), but it would be a "quick and dirty" solution to the copycat suicides.

 

[Foolmewunz]

@Wolfman

Oh, I get the point. I just think that copycat makes it sound so trivial.

The fact that someone did it before so they're now of a mind to end it all still says that they've got major issues. It's not like the Swedes, who like kill themselves over anything. (Steve Landesberg, in bad Swedish accent: Hi hunne, what's for dinner? Asparagus? "Blam".)

If they feel the position they're in seems so untenable that the fact that someone else's suicide might just be a suggested out still says that there's something seriously wrong. Just like the guys on the slashing/killing sprees. I mean, I'm in Hong Kong, and had a rough day last Friday, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to get a bottle of hydrochloric acid and start flinging it on passersby. I don't have that many issues.

 

[timhau]

Sorry for the derail, but...

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'.

OK. The problem is that you can make the exact same argument for men dominating the top positions in politics and business -- it is and has been the norm just about in every country in the world. However, it's generally not seen as 'human nature' but rather a problem that needs to be addressed. Maybe being male is a high stakes - high risk game, where the big winners win big and the more numerous big losers lose big; this is, arguably, the case in many if not all Western nations, where men dominate in not only corporate boardrooms but also homeless shelters. It just generally bothers me that 'the fight toward equality' is centered on bringing more women to the top while ignoring the men at the bottom.

 

[Taffer]

It's a very sad situation, but it's very easy to judge from over here in the west. For those of us who have worked in China, we know that the working conditions at this factory are absolutely not uncommon for factory workers there.

Remember that this spate of suicides started after the family of the first employee who committed suicide (for being demoted, not being fired) was payed a very large sum of money, several times more than the employee would have made. The sad truth is that, in China, often a factory worker is worth more to the family dead than alive.

 

[DOC]

$285 a month -- working 12 hr. days

Here is an article that goes into some detail about the situation at the complex.

From the article
iPad Factory On The Firing Line - Worker Suicides Have Electronics Maker Uneasy In China
2010-05-28 15:20:53 (6 days ago)
Posted By: Intellpuke from the Website Free Internet Press


"Ma Xiangqian, 18, was part of this peculiar Foxconn world, where everything is numbered: buildings, machines, component parts, finished products and, of course, people. For wages of up to 1,940 yuan per month (€230, or $285), the young man from Henan province spent his 12-hour shifts shoving plastic pieces into a machine that formed casings for Apple computers. Then he went home to sleep with nine colleagues in a room of one of the many dormitory blocks on the factory complex."

https://freeinternetpress.com/story.php?sid=25887

It goes on to say that the family is suspicious of Ma's death. And that unusual marks were found on his upper body and what looks to be a drill hole in his head. The family wants to contest the official version in court. The article also says Ma was made to clean a toilet after getting into a beef with a supervisor.

It also says a video was released that allegedly shows Foxconn security guards in Bejiing hitting and kicking workers.

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

I hope you're wrong.

Are we seriously saying that people would kill themselves to get in with the in crowd? I think copycat killers have issues already, copycat suicides very likely the same. I mean, walking into a school and slashing forty or fifty people with a chopper is some pretty heady stuff. Similarly, walking up to the roof and jumping off a building says, at minimum, that you've got something on your mind.

Not saying that copycat is less valid or important but its a known phenomenon that suicide rates increase when there is publicity surrounding a suicide.

So in a very close community like this, when someone commits suicide then there is an increased likelihood someone else will. Each time it happens increases the likelihood it will happen again.

That doesn't make it OK, acceptable or right but it is a piece of information to be considered when assessing whether 10 suicides indicates a serious issue with the way Apple run their factory.

The scale of these factories essentially makes them small towns - would 10 suicides in a town of the same population indicate a serious problem? I think its hard for people in the West to get their heads around these figures. If 10 people commited suicide in my workplace that would be nearly 100% of the workforce.

Thinking back to my time in Korea its pretty clear that they had a cultural issue with suicide also - it seem to be almost a 'fashionable' thing to do (not the right word I know). I wasn't aware of it so much in China but would assume it might also be the case too.

 

[Lothian]

Doc,

You highlighted the wage. Obviously that wouldn't go far in America. Is it particularly low for China or would it offer a fair standard of living? On that wage can you only afford to live in one room of a house if you share it with 8 others?

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

Doc,

You highlighted the wage. Obviously that wouldn't go far in America. Is it particularly low for China or would it offer a fair standard of living? On that wage can you only afford to live in a house if you share with 8 others?

Would say 2000RMB isn't unusual for a young worker in a major city in China. I knew people in Shanghai who were living on less than that after graduating from university. Equally many people will be making more. Most people live with their parents so rent isn't an issue - only those who move to find work, which is where company provided accomodation comes in for factory workers and the like.

The sharing with 8 others is probably a bit of mischief making - I assume they stay in dormitories, wouldn't be unusual for that kind of factory situation. I'm also assuming the accomodation is provided by the factory in addition to the salary or that a small amount is deducted to cover rent and meals.