A massive factory in the Southern Chinese city Shenzhen is known for assembling widely popular electronic goods such as Apple's iPhone and iPad as well as other products consumed by Americans from Sony, Hewlett Packard and Dell. Recently, a dark cloud has emerged over the factory where young workers have thrown themselves to their deaths. As a result, the Foxconn factory has recently been under intense scrutiny for its labor practices, where working conditions have been under fire for years.
What is Foxconn?
Foxconn is a very successful Fortune 500 company that employs some 420,000 workers in Shenzhen alone. The company is a subsidiary of the Hon Hai Group, a Taiwan-owned company. Foxonn is the subcontractor for many of Apple's popular products on the market now.
Some Young Workers Would Rather Die
The dead have all been young migrant workers performing assembly-line work at the factory. Most workers earn the city's minimum wage which is $130 per month and most live on on-site dormitories with no family and very little time to make personal connections of any kind. The average shift is 10 hours per day, but many work significant overtime hours. As can be imagined, the work is long, monotonous and boring. Foxconn runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in an attempt to keep up with the demand for the products manufactured there.
Suicide Rate at Foxconn Less than National Average
Some reports show that compared to the national suicide rate for China, Foxconn's suicide rate is actually lower than the norm. However, some question if it is a fair comparison given that the most recent suicide statistics for China are from 1999.
Read the full story as reported by Time Magazine, Chinese Factory Under Scrutiny as Suicides Mount or read Something Rotten at Apples Core? as reported by the Daily Mail Online.
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