GIANT TAIWANESE electronics manufacturer Foxconn will no longer make compensation payouts to the families of employees who kill themselves at its facilities in what it says is a bid to stop further tragedy.
Foxconn is the world’s biggest computer components maker and has been hit by tragedy this year.
Foxconn owner Terry Gou said the company would cease to offer compensation – equivalent to 10 years of wages – to the families of suicides.
This decision was taken after one of the workers who attempted suicide was found to have told his family in a suicide note that the company would pay them a large sum of money if he ended his own life.
Posters around the site explained how the company would stop paying out the money, which in some cases was nearly €12,000.
It would continue to make any mandatory payments.
Earlier this week, in a desperate bid to end a suicide crisis, Foxconn said it was planning to hike wages by nearly 70 per cent.
Last week, Foxconn raised pay for its Chinese assembly line workers at the troubled plant by 30 per cent.
Foxconn will increase the monthly salary for its assembly line workers in Shenzhen to 2,000 yuan (€245) from October 1st, if the employees pass a three-month performance review.
“The wage increase will reduce overtime work as a personal necessity for some employees and make it a personal choice for many workers,” Foxconn said in a statement.
The company is also installing safety nets in buildings and hiring more counsellors and monks.
Some workers and labour activists have said the suicides are caused by poor pay, tough working conditions and long hours. The crisis has led to widespread criticism that low salaries force staff to work long hours of overtime to make a decent wage.
“Many of these deaths have been linked to the horrible conditions at Foxconn facilities, where employees are expected to work for 10 hours a day,” China Labour Watch said in a statement.
However, Mr Gou said that investigations by Chinese authorities had found none of the 10 suicides at his group’s industrial complex in Shenzhen had anything to do with the working conditions there.
He said the percentage of suicides at the enormous plant was lower than the national average.
“None of the 12 suicide attempts at the Shenzhen complex was a result of poor working conditions or low salaries as has been alleged,” Mr Gou said.