Factory

A 7 year-old drowns in Shenzhen, playmates flee the scene

Posted: 09/19/2012 7:00 am

A seven-year-old drowned after accidentally falling into a creek when playing with friends in Pinghu Municipality in Shenzhen on September 16, according to Southern Metropolis Daily.

After police searched the creek next to Pinghu Pingnan Railway, police found the body of the boy, Li Jianping. It later emerged that his three playmates had fled the scene without seeking help or even telling their parents.

When the body was found at 8 p.m., Li had already been dead for three hours, an autopsy showed. The opportunity to save him was wasted, even though there was a vegetable farmer working 30 meters away from the scene of the accident when it happened.

After finishing Sunday lunch, the boys parents had to go to work in a nearby factory and his 16 year-old brother was unwilling to play with a 7 year-old. After returning home for dinner, the parents noticed the boy missing, they asked a neighbour’s 7 year-old daughter where he was, and she said he had fallen into the water.

The family live in a close-knit community of workers from Liuzhou in Guangxi, so neighbours came together to search for the boy.

According to Li’s female playmate, he fell into the creek while they were playing and because he couldn’t swim he was immediately submerged and couldn’t scream for help. She tried to grab him but could not reach.

Their two companions, both boys, then saw the clothes and shoes that he had hung by the side of the water and hid them in a woods some 100 meters away, the children later confessed to their parents.

According to Hong Kong-based child psychologist Yang Guang blamed the tragedy on society’s failure to teach children how to act during a crisis. She also blamed lack of respect for human life in China.

On the evening of the tragedy, Liu’s family burned all of his photographs, saying it would be too painful to look at them.

He was consistently an A-student and was so adorable that his parents’ colleagues often insisted he come to the factory so they could hold him, according to his mother.

A photograph of Li Lianping taken on a mobile phone on his 9 year-old brother’s birthday

Tagged: A-studentcreekdrownFactoryfleeGuangxiLi LianpingLiuzhouPinghu

Another suicide at Foxconn? Employee jumps off 9th floor after slitting wrists

Posted: 09/17/2012 3:59 pm

The Foxconn factory in Guanlan

Foxconn, the manufacturer of iDevices, Kindles, Samsung phones, tablets, e-readers and more, is coming under the gun once again after another of its young employees was found dead last Wednesday in Guanlan, very close to Shenzhen.

Reports say the man worked at one of Foxconn’s factories in Shenzhen. He jumped off the 9th floor of an apartment complex - a private building unrelated to Foxconn - after slitting his wrists, according to IDG News which cited local media. Other reports confirmed the man died and worked at Foxconn, but it’s not clear that he committed suicide as a result of his work.

Foxconn, which employees hundreds of thousands of people in Shenzhen, has come under fire in recent years after several of its employees committed suicide at its factories. PC World says the company is trying to improve, however:

Earlier this year, Apple announced the Fair Labor Association (FLA) would conduct audits of Foxconn factories, including one at Guanlan, which employs more than 70,000 workers.

In the FLA’s latest audit of Foxconn, the group said the company was steadily making improvements in conditions at its factory. Foxconn has also said the company is committed to worker safety, and has been making changes including raising wages and limiting workers’ overtime.

The company has however recently come under scrutiny for allegedly forcing vocational students to work at its factories, as part of its internship program. Foxconn denies the allegation, and has stated the workers are free to leave the program at anytime.

You can learn more about life in factories in the PRD in the latest edition of Nanfang TV.

Tagged: FactoryFoxconnguanlanhon hai precisioniPhonesamsung galaxyShenzhenSuicideTechnology

Nanfang TV: “Factory Girls” author interviews Dongguan factory workers

Posted: 09/17/2012 12:58 pm

The iPhone 5 is set to be released in the United States, Hong Kong, and a few other places later this week, and the sparkly new phone is putting renewed focus on conditions inside the Chinese factories where the devices are made.

Leslie T. Chang wrote an excellent book on life inside PRD factories called Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China in 2008, and says workers inside these factories aren’t just toiling to meet the needs of decadent western consumers:

“We, the beneficiaries of globalization seem to exploit these victims with every purchase we make and the injustice feels embedded in the products themselves,” Chang says. “This simple narrative equating Western demand and Chinese suffering is appealing … but it’s also inaccurate and disrespectful. We must be peculiarly self-obsessed to imagine that we have the power to drive tens of millions of people on the other side of the world to migrate and suffer in such terrible ways … By focusing so much on ourselves and our gadgets, we have rendered the individuals on the other ends into invisibility, as tiny and interchangeable as the parts of a mobile phone.”

She argues these employees are also working for a better life for themselves, their families, and their offspring. You can watch one of her talks on the issue below, in the latest edition of Nanfang TV.

Tagged: DongguanFactoryfactory girlsFoxconniPhone 5leslie t changSuicide

Guangdong factory workers strike after being insulted by boss

Posted: 04/20/2012 3:05 pm

News of another worker protest made headlines this week not for their demands for higher pay or more days off, but, according to this Guangzhou Daily report, an apology after those protesting felt they’d been humiliated by their boss.

Back to work, slaves!

The story takes us to Nanhai, where the small Qiangqun shoe factory has operated without issue for 19 years. The dispute reached a head when the factory received notice late last month from the local demolition office that the factory had been ordered to move, and soon. So, this past Saturday, Lin, the GM of the factory, rounded everyone up to let them know that they would still have jobs at another factory owned by the same company in Yongli, around two kilometers away, and that no changes would be made to their wages or other benefits.

The workers then began claiming severance pay, even if they would remain employees of the same conglomerate. Also, they complained that Yongli was too far away.

Lin’s response? “Get the hell out of here if you don’t want the job, all you shit-for-brains!”

Lin’s outburst has prompted many former employees to turn to the media. ”Even if he’s the boss, he can’t insult people like this, we hope to see an apology,” one of them said. Another noted: “We’re there to work, not be insulted.”

Isn’t China’s Labor Day in a week or two?

Lin, for his part, has admitted to reporters that he might have used the word “shit” during the meeting, but insists that people weren’t meant to take it literally. He says he wanted reporters to read between the lines and make a smart and rational decision.

As for compensation, lawyers say it comes down to the relationship between the two companies.

Tagged: FactoryLabor DayLabor DisputeLabour Dispute

Bra workers strike after being told to “jump off a roof”

Posted: 11/29/2011 4:11 pm

Striking bra factory workers (Photo from The Age)

Things are not going well in our part of the country.

The global economic slowdown has meant many factories in the Pearl River Delta are seeing their orders slashed at precisely the same time workers are demanding higher salaries and improved working conditions.

Last Thursday, 8,000 shoe factory workers took to the streets in calls for higher wages in Dongguan. This, on the heels of protests at Japanese auto factories last year.

Now it appears women at a bra factory are equally angry, this time over a bullying Cantonese boss. The details from Hong Kong’s The Standard:

More than 400 female workers at a bra factory in Shenzhen cut off the power and downed tools after a manager told one to “jump off a roof and go to hell,” state-run media said yesterday.

Workers wearing pink overalls walked off the job at Top Form Underwear, a Hong Kong-listed company, after a Cantonese-speaking boss verbally abused a Mandarin-speaking worker who didn’t understand instructions, the New Express reported.

The strike is the latest in a string of actions driven by worker dissatisfaction in the Pearl River Delta, where millions of migrant workers are employed.

Not exactly Happy Guangdong.

Tagged: BraFactoryLabour DisputePearl River DeltaStrikeUnrest

Another worker plummets to his death at Foxconn

Posted: 07/21/2011 9:37 am

The assembly line at Foxconn

Foxconn, the maker of all things Apple, Sony and Nokia among others, has been heavily criticized in recent months for workplace conditions, specifically at its Shenzhen plant in Longhua District. More than a dozen workers jumped from their dorm rooms last year, forcing Foxconn to improve workplace conditions and raise salaries.

But that doesn’t seem to have helped.

The Taipei Times notes that a 21-year old who had only been working at Foxconn for two weeks fell from his dormitory on Tuesday:

The company, meanwhile, has tried to contain the damage from the suspected suicide attempt by contending that the employee’s fall was not a result of work pressure.

Foxconn vice president Terry Cheng (程天縱) attributed the death to a possible accident, saying that the employee had only worked two hours of overtime since he joined the company.

“Based on my preliminary understanding, the employee was not a member of staff on the production line, but he worked in our research department,” Cheng told reporters in Taipei on Tuesday. “The employee was still on a training program and he had worked overtime for only two hours during the past 20 days, so we think that work pressure is irrelevant.”

He said that “prior to the accident, the employee had dined with 20 to 30 colleagues and they were likely drunk.”

Shanghaiist notes that claims of no overtime are spurious at best, considering who Foxconn’s clients are (*cough* Apple *cough*) and how the products it creates are in such high demand. Nonetheless, the series of suicides has not only hurt Foxconn’s reputation, but is one of the catalysts for the company’s move into Western China.

The exact number of deaths at Foxconn over the past two years are hard to pin down, with figures ranging from 13 to 16. You can get more info here.