One year, 10 suicides in Chinese electronics factory
By IANSThursday, May 27, 2010
BEIJING - Ten people have committed suicide in a Chinese electronics factory this year, the latest being a 23-year-old who jumped off a balcony hours after the owner visited the plant to stop the string of deaths, police said Thursday.
Investigation into the latest death at Foxconn Technology Group’s Shenzhen plant Wednesday night showed that the employee committed suicide.
The Public Security Bureau in Shenzhen said the man, surnamed He, was 23 years old and belonged to northwest China’s Gansu Province. He started working at the plant June 18 last year.
Witnesses saw the man jump from a balcony on the seventh floor of the a dormitory building at the plant, Xinhua quote police as saying.
It was the 12th such attempt at the plant this year. While 10 died, two employees survived their suicide attempts but sustained severe injuries.
The latest suicide occurred just hours after Foxconn head Terry Gou promised better welfare for the company’s employees and the government urged young workers to cherish their lives.
Gou accompanied around 300 Chinese and foreign reporters on an inspection of the plant Wednesday. The plant opened its doors to reporters in a bid to repair its image damaged by suicides.
He promised the firm would do everything possible to prevent more deaths. Nets have been set up to discourage people from jumping and about 100 mental health counsellors were being trained.
Of Foxconn’s 800,000 employees in China, 420,000 are based in Shenzhen.
“Many of our young employees are away from home and they need care from family members. This is something that the company can not provide,” Gou said.
DPA adds: Foxconn, the world’s largest contract maker of electronics, produces computers, mobile phones and gaming consoles for firms such as Apple Inc, Sony Corp, Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Nokia Corp.
About 420,000 people work at the plant, and most live in dormitories on the factory grounds. Some have complained on the internet of long working hours, almost daily overtime, low pay, beatings and verbal abuse by their Taiwan supervisors, but Foxconn
officials have denied abuse of workers with Guo saying the factory “is not a sweatshop”.
Experts said the potential causes for the spate of suicides were work pressure, lack of a social network for the uprooted migrant workers and personal isolation.
