GIANT TAIWANESE electronics manufacturer Foxconn has been trying to limit the fallout from a suicide crisis at its Shenzhen plant, as protesters picketed the company’s annual general meeting in Hong Kong, accusing it of shoddy corporate ethics.
Foxconn, the world’s biggest computer components maker which makes iPhones and iPads for Apple and a host of products for Dell and Hewlett-Packard, has been rocked by tragedy this year.
There have been 10 apparent suicides at Longhua in Shenzhen, where about 300,000 of Foxconn’s 420,000 employees in Shenzhen work, while an 11th worker died at another factory in northern China.
A group of about 30 demonstrators in Hong Kong waved signs saying, “Workers are not machines, they have self-esteem,” at a hotel where Foxconn shareholders were gathered.
They also waved a cardboard cutout of Apple chief Steve Jobs with devil’s horns and another placard featuring the company logo and the words “Bloody Apple”.
Earlier this week, in a desperate bid to end the crisis, Foxconn said it was planning to increase wages by nearly 70 per cent. Some workers and labour activists have said the suicides are caused by poor pay, tough working conditions and long hours, and the crisis has led to widespread criticism that low salaries force staff to work long hours of overtime to make a decent wage.