Suicide As Protest for the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: Foxconn, Global Capital, and the State 若手出稼ぎ中国人 の抗議自殺−−フォックスコン、グローバル資本、国家
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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 8 | Issue 37 | Number 2 | Sep 13, 2010 Suicide as Protest for the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: Foxconn, Global Capital, and the State 若手出稼ぎ中国人 の抗議自殺−−フォックスコン、グローバル資本、国家 Jenny Chan, Pun Ngai Suicide as Protest for the Newby these intertwined forces: First,leading Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: international brands have adopted unethical purchasing practices, resulting in substandard Foxconn, Global Capital, and the State conditions in their global electronics supply A German translation of this article is available here chains. Second, management has used abusive and (https://apjjf.org/data/3408_Foxconn_Deutsch.pdf). illegal methods to raise worker efficiency, Chinese translations are available:Traditional generating widespread grievances and resistance (https://apjjf.org/data/Traditional_Translation_34082. at the workplace level. Third, local Chinese officials pdf) andSimplified in collusion with enterprise management, (https://apjjf.org/data/Simplified_Translation_34082.p df). systematically neglect workers’ rights, resulting in widespread misery and deepened social Jenny Chan and Ngai Pun inequalities. The Foxconn human tragedy raises profound concerns about the working lives of the Abstract new generation of Chinese migrant workers. It A startling 13 young workers attempted or also challenges the state-driven policy based on committed suicide at the two Foxconnthe use of internal rural migrant workers, whose production facilities in southern China between labor and citizenship rights have been violated. January and May 2010. We can interpret their acts as protest against a global labor regime that Key words: suicide, protest, new generation of is widely practiced in China. Their defiant deaths migrant workers, global labor regime, migrant demand that society reflect upon the costs of a wages, electronics manufacturing service (EMS) state-promoted development model thatindustry, Foxconn, international brands, sacrifices dignity for corporate profit in the name citizenship, China of economic growth. Chinese migrant labor conditions as articulated by the state, are shaped To die is the only way to testify 1 APJ | JF 8 | 37 | 2 that we ever lived workers attempted or committed suicide at the two Foxconn production facilities in Shenzhen Perhaps for the Foxconn employees City in southeastern China, bringing a public and employees like us relations crisis, and a crisis of corporate – we who are callednongmingong , responsibility, to virtually all Foxconn’s image- rural migrant workers, in China – conscious customers, including Apple, HP, Dell, IBM, Samsung, Nokia, Hitachi and other the use of death is simply to testify electronic giants. Ten Chinese migrant workers that we were ever alive at all, died, while three survived their injuries. All were between 17 and 25 years old—in the prime of and that while we lived, we had youth. Their loss should awaken Chinese and only despair. international society to reflect upon the costs of a th - a worker blog (after the 12 jump at development model that sacrifices dignity for 1 Foxconn) economic growth. Foxconn’s success testifies to the export-led Introduction dynamism of the Shenzhen Special Economic Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, better Zone under China’s open policy. In the over known by its trade name Foxconn Fushikang( ), twenty years since its initial investment in 1988, was founded in Taipei in 1974.2 Foxconn is Foxconn has grown to be China’s largest currently the world’s largest contract electronics exporter. The electronics maker has a 900,000- manufacturer, meaning that it makes most of its strong workforce in the country, 85 percent of 5 money as a made-to-order manufacturer, not by whom are young people from rural areas. We selling its own brand products. The company is may say that Foxconn is a microcosm of the lives poised to take in over 50 percent of global of Chinese migrant workers. WhenTime electronics manufacturing service industry magazine nominated workers in China as the revenue by 2011.3 Under the leadership of runners-up in the 2009 Person of the Year, the founder and CEO Terry Gou, Foxconn declares editor commented that Chinese workers have itself “the most trusted and preferred partner in brightened the future of humanity by “leading 6 all aspects of global electronics outsourcing to the world to economic recovery.” The new help customers de-risk generationtheir of Chinese migrant workers business.”4 Tragically, in the first five months of (xinshengdai nongmingong), however, seems to this year as of 27 May 2010, a startling 13 young perceive themselves as losing their futures. The 2 APJ | JF 8 | 37 | 2 Foxconn tragedy has been dubbed the “suicide as a means to probe the working lives of the new express” by Chinese media.7 generation of Chinese migrant workers. We share the vision of the Chinese and international scholars who signed an unprecedented letter of concern about the Foxconn victims in June 2010 calling for implementation of humane labor standards at Foxconn and other global workplaces.8 We draw on worker interviews from our ongoing off-site investigations at Foxconn facilities in southern and eastern China Foxconn Factory, Shenzhen that began in May 2010 in order to learn about We can interpret Foxconn employees as having their conditions. We have also gained insights killed themselves to protest a global labor regime from industry and government sources about the in which China provides the cutting edge. Under characteristics and changing worldviews of the reform and open-door policy, China’s export- younger workers from their predecessors. By oriented economy proved it could deliver providing an inside look at the global labor economic growth. Asian-invested enterprises and regime, through empirical study of the Foxconn domestic manufacturers on mainland China have labor system in China, we highlight the urgent risen quickly to become contractors and sub- need for progressive reforms. Young migrant contractors to Western multinationals, based on workers, who have been placed in the “best” the exploitation of low-paid migrant workers. On Foxconn factory-cum-dormitory the factory floor, work stress associated with the environment,9 seemed only to show greater race to the bottom and the just-in-timeanxieties, and to see fewer alternatives than their production mode is intense. Suicide is merely the peers. Remedial efforts should rest on the extreme manifestation of what migrant workers cornerstone of workers’ direct involvement in in their hundreds of millions experience. Some decisions that concern them, in the workplace suicides may have been triggered by personal and beyond. troubles, as Foxconn management would like to In the next section, we discuss the emergence of claim. But there is a broader social context shared the global labor regime in China since the 1980s. by its workers and many others that underlies Foxconn employees are a typical representation the desperate individual actions. of the young generation of Chinese migrant This article reviews the recent Foxconn suicides workers. They want to change theirdagong 10 or 3 APJ | JF 8 | 37 | 2 working-for-the-factory-boss status in the city, like their parents, are marginalized citizens. but they face insurmountable hardships. Foxconn These better-educated-youths long for a life is an extreme form of this labor predicament, as attuned to the times, and the city is where we show in the third section on Foxconn’s rise to everything is happening. The higher their become “the electronics workshop of the world.” aspirations for a better future, the more obvious Then, we propose a three-fold framework to the contrast to their harsh reality becomes. explain the structural causes of the Foxconn Through various forms of protest, of which suicides. First, leading international brands have suicide is the most desperate expression, they are adopted unethical purchasing practices, resulting trying to reclaim their rights and dignity. in substandard conditions in their supply chains. Global Labor Regime Second, Foxconn management has used abusive methods to raise worker efficiency, generating At a communal setting in a workers’ dormitory widespread grievances and resistance. Third, in an industrial town of Shenzhen, China’s fastest local Chinese officials have colluded with growing city with a 2008 population officially enterprises like Foxconn to deprive workers of estimated at 14 million, we were surrounded by legitimate rights and welfare, resulting inFoxconn workers who were chatting and deepened misery and widened socialwatching a soap opera program at the grocery inequalities. It appears impossible for many store in the summer of 2010. It was an open area young workers to struggle through the daily where young rural migrant workers, most lives they live and eventually fulfill the dreams without a family, spent their limited leisure. The they have for the future. factory compound was gated and inside the gate, more than ten dormitory buildings were situated We conclude that the Foxconn human tragedy to the south of the company’s production raises profound concerns about the sustainability facilities. Outside the gate, more than 50,000 of Chinese development and global production. workers have occupied every single village At the heart of the bigger problem, we suggest, is house, turning them into collective dormitories. that workers in China do not have a functioning Barred from staying in the city where they sell labor union to make their voices heard. On the their labor power, the workers have to find bottom rung of the international commodity accommodation close to their employer or live in supply chain, millions of Chinese migrant company dormitories. The newly industrialized workers are permanently deprived of decent towns and cities in China feature numerous wages and benefits. Young workers with rural collective dormitories where a five-storey origins (hukou, official household registration), building can house several hundred workers. On 4 APJ | JF 8 | 37 | 2 windy nights, the clothes of the workers in the their historic native-place networks.