June 10, 2010
By Josh Horwitz
Over the past month, three separate yet related events have unfolded in China. A series of armed attacks at kindergartens nationwide coincided with a line of employee suicides at Foxconn, a major manufacturing firm in Shenzhen known for making Apple products. Meanwhile, as the suicides grew in number, several labor strikes at various manufacturing plants broke out as workers demanded, among other things, higher monthly wages. Each of these incidents have received considerable attention from both international and Chinese media outlets (though the latter still faces the usual restrictions), and there has been much discussion regarding the growing economic clout of Chinese workers and the poor working conditions at mega-factories like Foxconn. As the timeline below shows, these events have developed simultaneously, and when considered in relation to one another, issues regarding societal instability, the income gap, and the nation’s economy together emerge.
Timeline
On May 14th, 2010, Foxconn employee Liang Zhao committed suicide after falling from a 7-floor company dormitory. It was the seventh suicide to occur at the plant in 2010 and the third in the month of May.
On the same day Prime Minister Wen Jiabao issued the first public remarks by a Chinese leader on the recent string of deadly Kindergarten attacks. In a short televised interview, Wen stated that the government would have to take measures to resolve the societal tensions that motivated the attacks.
On May 19th reporter Liu Zhiyi, published a piece in Southern Weekend in which he described his experience working undercover at Foxconn for 28 days. Though Liu wrote that Foxconn “isn’t the ‘sweatshop’ that most imagine,” he depicted the workers as blindingly overworked, burdened by low wages and long hours (since many choose to work overtime), and frustrated with the lack of available alternatives in a country that seems to get richer and richer. The piece received considerable attention in China and is one of many articles in the Chinese media to cast a critical eye upon Foxconn’s working conditions.
On May 17th around 1,900 workers at a Honda transmission factory in Foshan went on strike, demanding a pay raise of 75%. The media was not permitted to report on the incident.
On May 21st 21-year-old Foxconn employee Nan Gang commited suicide after jumping from a four-story factory building. An additional employee committed suicide four days later.
On May 26th Foxconn Technology Chairman Terry Gou flew to Shenzhen to participate in a news conference and lead a tour of the Foxconn facilities. Gou and other Foxconn executives expressed a commitment to preventing additional suicides and reviewing company management practices, but argued that personal problems and social ills were to blame for the incidents.
On the same day, Honda shut down all four of its plants (three in Guangdong and one in Wuhan, Hubei) in response to the strike at the Foshan transmission factory. Chinese and foreign media outlets began to report the incident.
On the same day, a tenth Foxconn employee committed suicide.
On June 1st Foxconn announced it would raise its workers’ wages by 30%, from 900 RMB per month to 1200 per month. Foxconn spokesman Arthur Huang said that the pay raise would give employees more leisure time and attract more qualified workers.
On the same day, a Honda spokesman in China announced that operations at all four plants had resumed and that the majority of the striking workers had accepted a pay raise of 24%.
On June 3rd Beijing announced it would increase the city’s minimum wage by 20%, from 800 RMB per month to 960 RMB per month.
On June 4th Honda announced that the strike was officially resolved.
On June 6th Foxconn announced that it would further increase its monthly wages from 1,200 RMB to 2,000 RMB.
On June 7th a second strike broke out at a Honda parts plant in Foshan, the same city where the first strike erupted. Production at the plant ceased.
On June 9th workers at a Honda parts plant in Zhongshan staged an additional strike. Honda announced that production in the two striking plants would be suspended but that all other plants would operate as usual.
What does it mean when an outbreak of labor strikes at a major firm in China follows an outbreak of tragic suicides at a major firm in China?
Disregarding the specific working conditions of each factory plant, the Foxconn suicides and the Honda strikes represent contrasting responses to the pressures that Chinese laborers face as they struggle to earn a living, while the nation as a whole gets richer. The suicides at Foxconn recall the kindergarten attacks and other such incidents of terror, in which discontented citizens take extreme measures against themselves or society to relieve their frustrations. Though these acts themselves are not political in nature, it’s impossible to interpret them entirely apolitically, especially when they receive such extensive media attention. The public, repeated, and shocking nature of the these acts indicates to the observer that if the CCP allows existing social tensions in China to persist, chaos will erupt, and the innocent will suffer unjustly.
Meanwhile, the auto plant workers are among the growing number of rights-conscious workers who attempt to draw public attention as a means to resolve their dilemma. Since the demands of the strikers are targeted and reasonable - wages that accommodate a high cost of living, unpaid bonuses, and payment for factory shutdowns – their actions don’t challenge the societal status quo as forcefully as the unfortunate actions of the troubled Foxconn workers do.
To a certain extent, any implicit relationship between these two incidents is an exaggeration on behalf of the media, both Chinese and foreign. Labor strikes are nothing new in China but they usually go unreported. At present, newspapers are likely taking advantage of seemingly laxed or unenforced content restrictions in order to report on labor unrest at several high-profile companies (the Chinese media has also been following worker demands for wage-raises at KFC).
Yet the string of wage increases – at Honda, in Shenzhen, in Beijing, and at Foxconn – may signify a sympathetic response to labor unrest on behalf of both the central government and the individual firms, in addition to a purely economic response to a widely-reported impending labor shortage. The suicides publicly illustrate the underlying pressures that the otherwise economically motivated Honda strikers undergo in their daily lives. They add a sense of urgency to the strikes. Foxconn, in the midst of intense media scrutiny, has raised its wages twice in one week – a gesture of concern, if not a pre-emptive appeasement to its employees and its critics. And although Beijing has yet to release an official statement on the suicides or the strikes, Wen’s timely speech regarding the kindergarten attacks, in conjunction with the city’s recent wage increase, hints at a new commitment to reducing the burdens of the marginalized. The central government might hope that a nationwide increase in labor wages may serve both an economic function (help shift the country to higher value-added goods and increase domestic demand) and a societal function (increase stabilty among the migrant worker class).
Economics that add up in favor of the laborer, an attentive media, and business executives who fear examination of company practices – together, these factors currently form an environment in which workers have increased leverage. Their growing political power is reinforced when one considers how the Honda strikers successfully achieved their demands without the assistance of a formal labor union (in China, labor unions are all state-run and are generally viewed to be of little assistance to aggrieved employees). The timely convergence of irrational violence and rights-based protest sends the message to Beijing that frustrated workers can shrewdly bypass government restrictions to achieve their demands just as easily as they can release those frustrations with devastating consequences.
Further Reading
Washington Post
Labor unrest in China reflects changing demographics, more awareness of rights
June 6, 2010
The Daily Telegraph
Inside Foxconn’s suicide factory
May 27, 2010
The Economist
June 3, 2010
China daily
June 10, 2010
China Daily
May 28, 2010
New York Times
June 4, 2010.
New York Times
Electronics maker promises review after suicides
May 27, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
Hon Hai Faces Delicate Issue in Suicides
June 10, 2010
Asia News
A Wave of Strikes Hits Shanghai
June 9, 2010
Asia Times Online
Pay-rise for China’s workers
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/LF09Cb01.html
June 9, 2010
China Elections and Governence
28 Days Inside Foxconn: Workers’ Lives and Youths with Machines.
June 1, 2010
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