China: Suicide and strike at Foxconn
Labour unrest has erupted again in the world’s largest outsourcing manufacturer, Foxconn. It is a sharp sign that the working class in China is now under enormous economic pressure.
Last Thursday, a dissident Chinese language web site, China Jasmine Revolution, reported that several thousand workers at a Foxconn plant at Fushan city, in southern Guangdong province, began a strike against management’s secretive redundancy plan. Foxconn is shifting the facility to Yangtai, in Shandong province, where wages are lower.
The Foshan Pulihua Technology plant was originally a Taiwanese operation, established in 1990. Foxconn, another Taiwanese company, took over in 2006 and became one of the largest manufacturers of digital cameras and projectors for global brands such as Konica, Minolta and Nikon. With 20,000 workers in this plant, it is estimated that one in every 7 or 8 digital cameras in the world is made there.
China Jasmine Revolution reported that because of global economic slump, orders for the plant were falling, forcing Foxconn to retrench workers in groups, starting with an initial batch of 5,000. Workers threatened to continue to strike until the company outlined its whole relocation plan. Police were deployed to confront striking workers.
Another dispute over job cuts erupted at Foxconn’s giant Longhua complex, in the manufacturing centre of Shenzhen city, also in Guangdong province. The AppleInsider web site, citing accounts on China’s micro-blogging service Weibo, reported that last Friday morning a worker tried to commit suicide by jumping off the factory roof, but survived. Later three more workers climbed onto the roof and threatened to jump.
Foxconn issued a media statement, saying: “We can confirm that on March 29, three employees at our campus in Longhua, Shenzhen were involved in a workplace dispute over the company’s decision to offer them an opportunity to relocate to another Foxconn China facility as part of a shift in production linked to their business group.”
China National Radio reported last Friday that orders at the Foxconn plant were falling. The corporate giant was forcing workers to resign by “provoking discontent.” The report added that at another Guanlang complex in Shenzhen, workers were forced to take long stretches of leave on rotating basis, in order to encourage to them to resign. Those who took up retrenchment were offered just 600 yuan ($US96) as “compensation.”
After the Chinese New Year holiday in February, Foxconn did not follow its usual practice of hiring more workers, as there was no overtime work for the existing workforce. Without overtime pay, the wages paid to experienced workers are less than 2,000 yuan a month. After deductions for accommodation, meals and superannuation, “there is not much left for workers, it is hard for workers to stay even if they want to,” China National Radio stated.
Since 2010, Foxconn has been rocked by the suicide of 14 employees, mainly in Shenzhen, resulting from onerous sweatshop conditions and military-style management. Under pressure from its Western corporate clients, such as Apple, Foxconn’s billionaire chairman Terry Gou promised to give wage rises and other minor concessions to workers.
At the same time, however, the company initiated a massive plan to relocate production facilities to inland Chinese provinces and other Asian countries where wages are even lower. Foxconn’s profits in 2012 jumped by 16 percent to $3.2 billion—the highest level since 1995.
Chinese companies are also facing greater competition from advanced industrialised economies. According to Miami-based consulting company Hackett Group, the gap between manufacturing costs in the US and China has almost halved the past eight years and is likely to fall to just 16 percent this year. Huge wage cuts have been imposed on American workers in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Other export companies in China are also being hit by the global economic slump, leading to protests and strikes.
A thousand workers at the Second Division Factory of Liangneng Technology in Shenzhen, owned by Taiwanese-owned Unimicron, stopped work last week over plans to reassign them to other facilities, without compensation, and unpaid overtime wages. On April 1, hundreds of workers marched to raise their demands, prompting local authorities to deploy large numbers of police.
In online comments, striking workers explained that they had been locked inside the factory, under the supervision of government officials and police. Management refused to provide food to hundreds of striking workers, until reporters arrived. Another worker wrote that they worked 12 hours a day, plus 2.5 hours overtime, with only quarter of an hour for lunch.
Shipbuilding has also been affected. Last Thursday and Friday, 2,000 workers at the South Korean-owned STX shipyard in Dalian in eastern China took strike action. They gathered in front of the government office in the Changxingdao Technology Zone to protest against unpaid wages, and called for a ban on the transfer of assets by the company. A large number of police was deployed to guard the building.
STX’s Chinese operation, which was only established in 2008, as part of STX’s aggressive global expansion, now has 30,000 workers. But the global financial crisis has sent the company into debt because of a rapid fall in ship orders. Workers posted “insider” information online, saying STX was unable to pay major Chinese banks debts of 5.89 billion yuan ($950 million) that matured on March 21. STX’s overall debt is estimated to be 200 percent of its assets.
The ongoing labour unrest in export enterprises indicates that slowing Chinese economic growth is intensifying sharp social tensions, which are set to worsen in the coming weeks and months.
John Chan, World Socialist Web Site, 4 avril 2013
Nouvelle vague de suicides chez Foxconn
Les suicides en série dans les usines du premier fabricant mondial d’électronique grand public ont agité l’opinion publique à partir de 2010. Le rythme de ces tragédies semblait avoir ralenti en 2012. Ces jours-ci, quatre tentatives de suicides à Shenzhen relancent la polémique.
Réduction de la masse salariale
La plus grande usine du groupe Foxconn, qui fabrique la plus grande partie des produits d’Apple, d’Acer, les tablettes d’Amazon, … est située dans le quartier de Longhua à Shenzhen. C’est la fameuse ‘Foxconn City’, où travaillent 300 à 400’000 personnes. Le mode de vie des ouvriers y est assez mystérieux : des journalistes d’investigation étrangers font régulièrement des révélations fracassantes, comme la présence de travail infantile, des horaires incroyables (70 heures par semaine,…). ‘Scoops’ souvent réfutés rapidement.
Cependant, les conditions de travail dans la Foxconn City en ce début d’année 2013 ne sont certainement pas des plus réjouissantes. La faute à la crise économique, qui voit les ventes de produits d’électronique stagner au mieux, et donc les commandes des grandes marques mondiales se réduire. Alors que Foxconn recrutait chaque année des dizaines de milliers d’employés pour compenser un turn over important et assurer la croissance de ses activités, la situation a nettement changé cette année. Foxconn doit réduire sa masse salariale. Pour le faire, tous les moyens sont bons. Selon des anciens employés fraîchement débarqués, le management offrirait une prime de 600 yuans (environ 75 euros) à ceux qui acceptent de démissionner. Une option encore plus avantageuse pour l’entreprise que d’avoir recours à des licenciements, puisque plusieurs mois de salaire doivent être réglés à un ouvrier licencié.
Des travailleurs poussés à bout
La situation économique semble malheureusement relancer la vague de suicide à Shenzhen. En deux journées quatre personnes ont tenté de se suicider. Le 28 mars, une jeune employée d’un peu plus de 20 ans, s’est jetée par la fenêtre de son petit dortoir. Elle est gravement blessée mais ses jours ne sont pas en danger malgré la lenteur d’arrivée des secours dénoncée par les témoins. Le lendemain, ce sont 3 ouvriers qui ont occupé le toit d’une usine en menaçant de sauter. Ils protestaient contre les bas salaires et les pressions exercées pour pousser les travailleurs à démissionner.
Selon certaines sources, les salaires à l’embauche ne sont pas mirobolants : 1800 yuans (225 euros) auxquels sont soustraits des ‘frais d’hébergement et de cantine’ de 500 yuans (62 euros). Alors qu’auparavant les employés pouvaient gagner beaucoup plus en faisant des heures supplémentaires, le faible niveau de production rend impossible cette éventualité. Vivre avec ce salaire de base de 160 euros dans une ville de Shenzhen, où les prix se rapprochent toujours plus de ceux de la voisine Hong-Kong, semble relever de l’exploit.
Le ralentissement de l’économie rend les troubles sociaux presque inévitables. C’est ce que veut à tout prix éviter le gouvernement. L’administration fera donc tout ce qui est en son pouvoir pour maintenir un niveau de croissance satisfaisant. Même si cela entraîne l’adoption de mesures protectionnistes qui risquent de ne pas améliorer la situation en Europe…
Presse esclavagiste (Greenetvert.fr, 4 avril 2013)