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Foxconn Campaign model of international solidarity
The latest phase of the campaign to improve wages and working conditions for Chinese workers at Foxconn is a model for concerted international solidarity action. A joint press statement by the Hong Kong-based Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), the Dutch-based international solidarity networks GoodElectronics and makeITfair, Bread for All (the Swiss Protestant Development Service), and the global International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF) released SACOM's new investigative report "Workers as Machines: Foxconn's Military Management."
The detailed 24-page report delves deeply into the background behind the suicides of dozens of young workers at Foxconn's giant electronics assembly plants in Shenzhen. It is the product of a remarkable collaboration of a research team of more than 60 students and teachers from twenty universities in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which investigated conditions at Foxconn's production facilities in nine Chinese cities from May through September 2010. Their investigative report was released in Chinese on 9 October.
The joint press release and full English-language text of SACOM's report are available on the SACOM website at http://sacom.hk/archives/720 and on the IMF website at
http://www.imfmetal.org/index.cfm?c=24332&l=2.
Foxconn has already issued a media statement trying to rebut the report, and promising wage increases and reforms of certain abuses. TheTaiwanese company is the largest global manufacturer of electronic goods, supplying Apple, Nokia,HP, Dell and other companies. In 2009 its global market share of the entire electronics manufacture and services industry was 44%. It employs 900,000 workers in China, including 420,000 at two giant industrial complexes in Shenzhen, where the suicides occurred.
Foxconn's profit margins are relatively thin, and its corresponding ability to pay more adequate wages in China is constrained by the unwillingness of the global electronics brand name companies to allocate enough money to the costs of assembling their products. In the long run, achieving decent wages and conditions for millions of electronics assembly workers in China and elsewhere demand consumer campaigns in developed countries to require electronic transnationals to reduce their considerable profits and raise retail prices for their final products.
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Comment by SURESH KUMAR C T on October 13, 2010 at 9:12 -
Foxconn woes are not confined to one country alone but the one that affects all Foxconn workers globally. Here is a brief report on the woes of Foxconn India workers.
With 7,000 workers Foxconn India is the third largest industrial employer in Tamil Nadu, India after Hyundai and Nokia. Foxconn management has declared they would recognize only Thozilalar Munnetra Sangam (FITMS), which is affiliated to the DMK party that currently is ruling the State of Tamil Nadu. The ruling DMK party has openly sided with the management in all workers’ disputes in the state and has not hesitated to use brutal tactics to break up workers’ struggles. Having lost faith with FITMS union, majority workers have started Foxconn India Thozilalar Sangam (FITS) under the banner of CITU, which is affiliated to Communist Party of India (Marxist). But the Foxconn management has not only refused to recognise the majority Union but has also resorted to vindictive action by dismissing 23 union activists of FITS. On September 21, workers belonging to FITS have started stay in strike demanding recognition to their union, reinstatement of dismissed workers and a negotiated wage settlement. Their wage revision demand is the meanest one with a demand for a wage of Rs.10,000 (US$221 approx) per month on Cost to Company (CTC) basis for the regular workers. Currently a regular worker with four years of experience receives only Rs.4800 (US$106 - approx) on CTC basis.
The Foxconn management instead of starting a meaningful negotiation with the majority union has resorted to vindictive action by calling in the Police and with the connivance of the ruling party, has arranged for the arrest of 320 workers including the CITU state secretary Com. A. Soundarajan and its Kanchipuram district secretary Com. E. Muthukumar on October 10, 2010. Earlier on September 24, police forces broke up an occupation of the plant by workers, brutally beating dozens and detaining 1,200 workers for a whole day before releasing them in the evening in order to create fear among the workers. But all these actions have only strengthened the workers commitment and they have intensified their struggle which still is in progress.
It may be pertinent to note that earlier in July this year, 250 workers at a neighboring Foxconn plant had to be hospitalized after becoming sick at the plant. It is suspected that workers fell ill after inhaling insecticide and pesticides the company liberally sprayed in working areas despite the health dangers. The plant also lacked proper ventilation, thus exposing the workers not only to polluted air, but also the sweltering heat the region is noted for.
So, it is high time to globalize the Foxconn workers' struggle and build a global solidarity movement in support of the brave Foxconn workers all over the world.
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