Worker Suicides At Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, China —

More than a dozen young workers at the giant (300,000-worker) Foxconn electronics plant in Shenzhen, China have attempted suicide since January 1st with 10 confirmed deaths and at least three workers seriously disabled for life.

The Taiwanese contractor produces the Apple iPhones and products for Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Workers rights groups in China and globally have designated June 8th – the roll-out date for Apple’s fourth generation iPhone – as a “Global Day of Remembrance for Victims of Foxconn.” An on-line petition is being circulated by the “LabourStart” website.

The Foxconn suicides have raised the issue of working conditions in the electronics global supply chain, and at plants producing for all international electronics brands. Despite “corporate codes of conduct” and “third-party monitoring,” electronics supply chains are characterized by low pay, very long hours of work, frequently unsafe and unhealthy work sites, and intense pressure to meet production goals.

At the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, Chinese labor rights groups have documented overtime hours exceeding 100 hours a month, work six and seven days a week for months at a time, numerous work accidents and illnesses, and draconian factory rules that prohibit workers from even speaking to one another at work.

The materials below include reports from the factory floor as well as information on the campaign to commemorate dead workers on June 8th, boycott Foxconn products during the month of June 2010, and circulate an on-line petition calling on Foxconn to improve working conditions and respect workers’ legal rights to safe and healthy workplaces.

June 8th: Global Day of Remembrance for Victims of Foxconn – Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) (5/27/10); http://www.gopetition.com/online/36639.html

“Dying Young: Suicide & China’s booming economy,” SACOM (5/25/10), http://sacom.hk/archives/640

“Another Foxconn Worker Dies – This Time from Exhaustion,” SACOM (6/4/2010), http://sacom.hk/archives/647

“Address the Problems of New Generations of Chinese Migrant Workers, End the Foxconn Tragedy Now,” An Appeal by Chinese Sociologists (5/18/10); http://sacom.hk/archives/644

“Chinese responses to Foxconn suicides,” China Labor News Translations (CLNT) (6/3/2010), www.clntranslations.org/article/55/foxconn

“Foxconn – an appalling showcase for the global electronics sector” (GoodElectronics) )6/1/10), www.goodelectronics.org

“Inside Foxconn’s Suicide Factory,” Malcolm Moore, The Telegraph (London) (5/27/10); www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/7773011/A-look-inside-the-Foxconn-suicide-factory.html

“Toxic Chemicals: Everyone at Risk,” Stephen Frost, CSR Asia Weekly (5/26/10); www.csr-asia.com/weekly_detail.php?id=12040

“China: Showing the Strain,” Kathrin Hille, Financial Times (5/28/10); www.ft.com

“The dark side of China’s enduring dream,” David Pilling, Financial Times (5/26/10); www.ft.com

“Supplier Responsibility, 2010 Progress Report,” Apple Inc., http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/L418102A_SR_2010Report_FF.pdf

“Global Electronics Industry: Poster Child of 21st Century Sweatshops and Despoiler of the Environment?” Garrett Brown, EHS Today (September 2009), http://mhssn.igc.org/EHSToday-Sept09_GBrown.pdf