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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>There are some pretty bad sweat shops in south
China. The Foxcomm thing</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>made the news here in China too so its no secret
matter. The employees are not</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>held prisoner but they might feel that way.
They can quit and go home anytime they want.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Qiao's nephew got suckered into some sort of work
arrangement in Jiangmen about 12 years ago.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>They didnt get much to eat and the cat didnt pay
them as promised either. Fortunately "William" had enough cash
to </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>catch a bus to Guangzhou and he stayed with us for
a couple of years, and I found him an</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>apprenticeship to a computer software outfit.
He stayed on there until 2005 and now he has his own</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>outfit <A
href="http://www.yushion.com">http://www.yushion.com</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>These outfits like Foxcomm are breaking the
law.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Their employees have the right to quit and
leave.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I am not sure what is the melange of social events
that is leading </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>to an outbreak of suicides, but one would imagine
that Foxcomm is </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>at least responsible for the
environment.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=unionyes@ameritech.net
href="mailto:unionyes@ameritech.net">unionyes</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, June 30, 2010 10:07
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Peace-discuss] Fw: memorial for
workers who killed themselves atthe factory making ipads</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=dbacon@igc.org href="mailto:dbacon@igc.org">David Bacon</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=dbacon@igc.org
href="mailto:dbacon@igc.org">dbacon@igc.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, June 30, 2010 12:31 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> memorial for workers who killed themselves at the factory
making ipads</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000><X-TAB>
</X-TAB>SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 17JUNE10 - Chinese immigrants and
Chinese-Americans in San Francisco protest the long hours and bad conditions
at the Foxconn factory in southern China, where the Apple iPad is
manufactured. They lined up in front of Apple's flagship store in San
Francisco, holding signs with the names of workers at the factory who have
committed suicide because of the
conditions.<BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>Those conditions
include 80 hours of overtime a month, according to the Chinese
media. Chinese law limits overtime to 36 hours per month. No
one is allowed to talk on the production line, and workers complain of
constant high line speed and speedup. Most workers live in huge
dormitories, where often 12 people share a
room. <BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>The
suicides include a man who jumped from a dormitory. He'd worked there
for two years. Another man, recently hired, slit his wrists and was
taken to a hospital. A woman hanged herself in the bathroom, and a man
drowned in a company swimming pool. The latest person committed suicide
right after Foxconn's head, Terry Guo, had visited the factory and taken
journalists on a tour.<BR><X-TAB>
</X-TAB>Apple Corporation was embarrassed by the disclosure of the conditions
for the people who make iPhones, iPods and iPads. The company, which has
pushed for extra production of the newly unveiled iPad, said it would
compensate workers by increasing the money it was paying Foxconn from 2.3% to
3% of the final price it charges for an iPad. That's the equivalent of
the amount Apple spends for the device's aluminium back.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000><X-TAB>
</X-TAB>The protest and memorial was organized by San Francisco's Chinese
Progressive Association.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000><BR></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><IMG src="cid:DF4030CACEC147478E9D8A08B8D602BF@ACERLAPTOP"><FONT
color=#000000><BR><BR><B>"From Silicon Valley to Shenzhen"</B> is a new book,
to be published later this year, about the electronics contract manufacturing
industry, by German sociologist Boy Leuthje. The following are excerpts
from the book's description of Foxconn:<BR><BR><X-TAB></X-TAB>The hallmark of
industrial mass work in Chinese contract manufacturing is the massive
employment of young, mostly women workers from rural areas ... Electronics
contract manufacturing combines wage labor from poor and undeveloped areas
with highly modern work and living environments in world market
factories.<BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>In 2008, the company [Foxconn] reported
700.000 workers all over China, 320.000 of them alone in the giant Shenzhen
Longhua facility ("Foxconn City"), another 80.000 in other facilities in
Shenzhen and the remainder in about half a dozen newly built industrial parks
in other parts of China, such as Kunshan, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Yantai and
Wuhan.<BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>Foxconn publicly
announced in 2008 that it would reduce its workforce of 700.000 in China
by 15%,. In the Shenzhen Longhua facility 60.000 workers were laid off
in late 2008 and early 2009 or did not return from their home villages after
the Chinese New Year.<BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>Even relatively good
benefits in housing, food and recreation do not significantly stabilize the
workforce. In some major contract manufacturing plants, tragic incidents have
highlighted the often-desperate situation of individual workers, who seek to
escape the permanent pressure of management control and workplace stress. ...
In 2006, the situation in Foxconn's giant industrial park in Shenzhen also
gave rise to the first major public debate in China about the working
conditions at contract manufacturers. This subsequently caused
significant changes in labor
relations.<BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>A report in a
British tabloid exposed the working conditions in the production of Apple's
I-Pod music player at Foxconn. Chinese media then ran numerous
stories about ultra-low wages and extremely long working hours in Foxconn
factories in Shenzhen and other locations around the country. The company's
extensive control system could not prevent workers from reporting to Chinese
media that violation of labor laws was a common practice at
Foxconn.<X-TAB>
</X-TAB><BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>[The
company's attitude] reflects the increasing difficulty multinational contract
manufacturers have in controlling the social and political costs of their
despotic low-wage regime.<BR><X-TAB> </X-TAB>Most recently, the tragic
series of suicides among young migrant workers in the same factory in early
2010 provoked unprecedented media publicity in China and internationally. In
China, the debate not only focussed on the fate of migrant workers, but also
raised profound questions about the need to change the model of economic
development, based on large-scale use of rural low-wage labor for export
production.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000><X-TAB>
</X-TAB>The tragic events in Foxconn City in 2010 underline the failure of
industry-proclaimed codes of conduct and their "monitoring" to achieve
socially responsible working conditions in this and other contract
manufacturing factories ... In China, a group of nine Chinese sociologists
from leading universities took the unusual step of issuing a collective
appeal. In their opinion, the crisis at Foxconn reveals deep problems in
China's current model of economic development. They challenge the factory
regime at Foxconn, and call on the Chinese national and local government and
the concerned enterprises to allow migrant workers to become "true citizens of
the enterprise"</FONT></DIV>
<HR>
<DIV>For more articles and images, see <FONT color=#000000>
http://dbacon.igc.org</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and
Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)</DIV>
<DIV>Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008</DIV>
<DIV><FONT
color=#000000>http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US</DIV>
<DIV>Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)</DIV>
<DIV><FONT
color=#000000>http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border
(University of California, 2004)</DIV>
<DIV><FONT
color=#000000>http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html</FONT></DIV><X-SIGSEP><PRE>--
</PRE></X-SIGSEP>
<DIV>__________________________________<BR><BR>David Bacon, Photographs and
Stories<BR>http://dbacon.igc.org<BR><BR>__________________________________</DIV><BR>--
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