August 19, 2010 8:40 AM
iPhone China suicides - Factory Girls
Last fall, I read this book which offered a fascinating look into the lives and minds of young men and women migrating from villages into the modern work force of China. The massive numbers, staggering anonymity, and brutal working/living environment would be difficult for Americans to wrap their minds around, but in the hands of this skillful, sympatico author, they form a backdrop for the stories of real people you can care about.
Publisher's Weekly review:
Chang, a former Beijing correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, explores the urban realities and rural roots of a community, until now, as unacknowledged as it is massive--China's 130 million workers whose exodus from villages to factory and city life is the largest migration in history. Chang spent three years following the successes, hardships and heartbreaks of two teenage girls, Min and Chunming, migrants working the assembly lines in Dongguan, one of the new factory cities that have sprung up all over China. The author's incorporation of their diaries, e-mails and text messages into the narrative allows the girls--with their incredible ambition and youth--to emerge powerfully upon the page. Dongguan city is itself a character, with talent markets where migrants talk their way into their next big break, a lively if not always romantic online dating community and a computerized English language school where students shave their heads like monks to show commitment to their studies.
I'm thinking of this today because of the stories of serial suicides of iPhone workers. Having some background on the circumstances in which our latest garments and tech toys are made makes it easy to understand how something like this can happen.
Very sad, the price that is paid for American's addiction to gadgets:
iPhone-maker rallies workers after China suicides
Aug 18, 2010
By GILLIAN WONGSHENZHEN, China (AP) - Young workers who normally spend their days assembling iPhones and other high-tech gadgets packed a stadium at their massive campus Wednesday, waving pompoms and shouting slogans at a rally to raise morale following a string of suicides at the company's heavily regimented factories.
The outreach to workers shows how the normally secretive Foxconn Technology Group has been shaken by the suicides and the bad press they have attracted.
"For a long period of time I think we were kind of blinded by our success," said Louis Woo, special assistant to Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn's parent company. "We were kind of caught by surprise."
The company has already raised wages, hired counselors and installed safety nets on buildings to catch would-be jumpers. Other changes include job rotation so workers can try different tasks and grouping dorm assignments by home province so workers don't feel so isolated.
However, Woo acknowledged there will be challenges in preventing such tragedies in a work force of 920,000 spread across 16 factories in China, all of which are to have morale boosting rallies. Woo said he expected the company will grow to 1.3 million workers sometime next year.
"No matter how hard we try, such things will continue to happen," he said.
The rally Wednesday took place at Foxconn's mammoth industrial park in Shenzhen, which employs 300,000 and where most of the suicides have taken place. The latest suicide - the 12th this year - occurred Aug. 4 when a 22-year-old woman jumped from her factory dormitory in eastern Jiangsu province.
Twenty thousand workers dressed in costumes ranging from cheerleader outfits to Victorian dresses filled the stadium at the factory complex, which was decorated with colorful flags bearing messages such as "Treasure your life, love your family." The workers chanted similar slogans and speakers described their career development at Foxconn.
Read more at myway.
Posted in Books, Oppression, Social Justice | Permalink
Comments
Remember the one-child law in China. These young people don't have any brothers or sister or even cousins. It must be so lonely.
Posted by: Sue from Buffalo | August 19, 2010 10:27 AM
I have been avoiding Made in China products for a while now as I fear the safety of those products due to the environment under which they are produced and the mindsets. I am beginning tho think about outright boycotting them.
Posted by: Cath Young | August 19, 2010 11:11 AM
Factory jobs used to be miserable in the US, too. The difference was, we had a free market economy, a society based on Judeo-Christian values, and the freedom to openly assemble, protest, and speak out against oppression and horrible conditions. China is still run by communist dictators who decide on high who wins and who loses. And contrary to their rhetoric, it's the workers who lose, with no power to change their lot and no freedom to even legally complain. No wonder they feel suicide is their only escape!
Posted by: Rachel | August 19, 2010 1:42 PM
