5/27/2020 Suicide at Chinese iPhone factory reignites concern over working conditions

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Suicide at Chinese iPhone factory reignites concern over working
conditions

The headquarters of Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contractor manufacturer CREDIT:  CRAIG FERGUSON/ LIGHTROCKET

By Jamie Fullerton, XIAMEN

7 JANUARY 2018 • 4:36PM

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5/27/2020 Suicide at Chinese iPhone factory reignites concern over working conditions

A US-based Chinese workers’ rights organisation has claimed that a factory worker at a

firm that produces Apple’s iPhones in China, died after jumping from a building on
Saturday.

China Labor Watch (CLW) said that Li Ming, 31, jumped to his death from a building in the
city of Zhengzhou, in the east-central Chinese Henan province, where he had been
working for Foxconn.

The death has triggered comparisons with a wave of suicides in 2010 and 2011 at Foxconn
factories in China amid concerns over working conditions.

CLW posted video footage that it said showed Mr Li, who the organisation claimed was
was working for Foxconn through an agency, lying lifelessly on the ground after his leap.
The footage, seemingly filmed from a nearby high-rise building, shows a body lying in the
snowy ground, as four people stand nearby.

CLW said that it had spoken to Mr Li’s father, but that it was still not clear why he had
jumped from the building. The organisation told The Telegraph that he had been working
for Foxconn for two months and lived in factory dormitories.

Foxconn’s spokesperson did not respond to messages asking for further information about
the incident.

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5/27/2020 Suicide at Chinese iPhone factory reignites concern over working conditions

Foxconn Alleged suicide concerns

2009

In July 2009 a 25 year-old male Foxconn 2010

communications department worker named Sun
Danyong committs suicide by jumping from his Foxconn’s annus horribilis for employee
apartment building. He allegedly lost a suicides. The company, embroiled in accusations
prototype iPhone and was beaten up by securityof “sweatshop” conditions, disputes some cases,
guards. but it is been estimated that at least 14 company
employees took their own lives during the year,
most throwing themselves from buildings. The
2011 iPhone 4 is released in June.

In May 2011 Foxconn erects nets around its

Shenzhen factory buildings, designed to prevent
suicide jumps. A PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, is
hired to deal with negative publicity. The nets 2012 2013
seem to work, with fewer suicides reported after
they go up, but at least four employees die by In January 2012 Foxconn factory workers
throwing themselves from buildings. protest about conditions in Wuhan. September
2012 sees the release of the iPhone 5. Three
Foxconn employees, all in their early 20s, are
report as having killed themselves by throwing
2017 themselves from buildings during the two-year
period.
The year of the iPhone X: Apple’s first $1,000
smartphone. On January 6 Li Ming dies after
falling from a building in Zhengzhou, where the
X is manufactured.

CLW’s claim has the potential to reignite controversy surrounding the working conditions
of workers at Taiwanese firm Foxconn, which is China’s biggest private sector employer
with a workforce believed to be in excess of 1.2 million.

In 2010 the company was faced with allegations of forcing its workers to endure “sweat
shop” conditions that led to a spate of suicides during that year.

Following reports of worker suicides the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: "We are on top of
this… Foxconn is not a sweatshop. It's a factory – but my gosh, they have restaurants and
movie theatres... but it's a factory. But they've had some suicides and attempted suicides –
and they have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the US rate is, but it's still
troubling."
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5/27/2020 Suicide at Chinese iPhone factory reignites concern over working conditions

In 2011 Foxconn, which also manufactures for Nintendo, Sony and BlackBerry, installed
nets outside some of its factory buildings in Shenzhen, in China’s southeast Guangdong
province, in an attempt to quell suicide attempts.

In January 2012 a group of 150 workers in a Foxconn factory in Wuhan, in the central
Hubei province, protested against working conditions by standing on the roof of a factory
building and threatening to commit suicide.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, center, visits the iPhone production line at the newly-built manufacturing facility Foxconn Zhengzhou
Technology Park, which employs 120,000 people CREDIT:  APPLE CORPS

One Wuhan worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the protest was the
result of around 600 workers being moved to a new factory location where conditions
were unbearable.

"The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin
on our hand was black,” they said. “The factory was also really choked with dust and no
one could bear it.”

After the protest a Foxconn spokesperson said: "The welfare of our employees is our top
priority and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly.”

According to CLW, Zhengzhou, where Mr Li is reported to have died, is where Foxconn

manufactures the Apple X smartphone, which was released last November.

Chinese state media reported that Zhengzhou is where around half of Apple’s iPhones are
manufactured. About 350,000 workers reportedly work on production lines in the city to
make iPhones at a rate of 350 per minute.

The Chinese state-controlled newspaper China Daily reported that Foxconn had created a
“complete industry chain in counties and towns of Zhengzhou, which include a
headquarters, precision electronics companies, and other branch plants, guaranteeing
high efficiency and self-sufficiency".

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5/27/2020 Suicide at Chinese iPhone factory reignites concern over working conditions

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