Thursday, August 31, 2006

Comments from (about) iPod workers

many former foxconn employees or "insiders" started to speak out in blogs, forums, etc. (sohu says that "many foxconn employees set up blogs at sohu"):

foxconn is really vicious, 80% are female workers aged 17-18, some are 15 or 16 years-old, they STAND to work (not allowed to sit), you can image it, standing for 14-15 hours, 20 minutes for lunch. is there any humanity in such a factory? overtime voluntarily? shit! how much base pay they get - 450-580 RMB per month, they have to work overtime to earn as much as 1000 RMB. some work for months without break. there is no media report. local government doesn't care about it, even they know the truth, they won't mind it, how much tax they collect from foxconn, hundreds of millions. the government is certainly very happy with such companies ......


isnt it a fact that some work 11-12 hours a day?


i am a foxconn employee, i was greatly delighted when the hidden sinisters of foxconn was exposed. there are so many hidden sinisters in foxconn and let me share a few of them i witnessed with you:

1) Nov 2003. the CCPBG BU is in its slack season and from that month foxconn only pay the 340 RMB base salary, no pay for OT. because of this, a female worker (from Hunan province) went back to her dorm at 23:00 after work and jumped from 3rd floor to kill herself


sorry, will do the translation later


posted @ 9:59 PM

Sleep-deprived Chinese are everywhere

when we drove back home last night, we met a traffic jam caused by a taxi, the driver fall into sleep on the steering wheel and didn't woke up until the police came to knock his window. i have never met this before.

another story learned in lunch time - workers in a taiwan-invested factory in Kunshan are so tired that they often fall into sleep oon their working tables. the boss is generaous enough and gives his own stereos to the workers to "keep them enthusiastic".



the largest sleep-deprived group in china is students. the good news is - a new law was drafted recently to ensure that young students have enough sleep.

i don't take the metro quite often but if i do, usually i find that 60% of the passengers are taking a nap.


posted @ 8:39 PM

Why not Wu Hao and what makes a good "China story"?

even if the Wu Hao case is not related to the chinese government, it will not be reported as wildly as the foxconn case by chinese media and the public will not pay the same attention as they pay it to the foxconn case.

why? because there is one important element missing in the wu hao case - relevance.

deep in the public psyche for the foxconn case, it's the disgust at big corporations that treat workers inhumanly. it's an unfortuante reality related with china's current position in the international value creation chain, it's a widely existing phenomenon and is highly relevant to many people's lives. this is what drives people mad at foxconn.

the foxconn case makes people ask such questions as "what is a good corportation?", "should we welcome foreign investment with any price?", "how to evalute local government?", "what china should do to protect workers rights?", "what are the roles of free press to protect workers rights?". such questions will lead to far-reaching impacts on the chinese society, just like the Sun Zhigang case did.

in this regard, wu hao is not such a good "china story" but foxconn case is.

related links:

What makes news? 

My Life As An Activist Journalist

Foxconn finale: All's well that ends in retreat?


posted @ 10:43 AM