11th Foxconn Employee Commits Suicide

May 26, 2010 By Ryan Fleming

Several Chinese sources are reporting that another Foxconn employee committed suicide Wednesday, bringing the total to 11 suicides this year. Apple, HP and Dell say they are investigating the situation.

According to Engadget, which cites several Chinese sources, another Foxconn employee has committed suicide today. Details are still sketchy, including the identity of the newest employee to die, except that he was male and he died at the Longhua factory.

Foxconn Technology Group has faced increased scrutiny after a string of suicides drew attention to the working conditions. The Chinese factory is known for producing many consumer electronics devices for western companies. So far this year, there have been 10 confirmed suicides, many of which were people under 20. Two other employees have attempted to kill themselves this year, but both survived.

The factory made headlines last year when a missing prototype iPhone lead to a worker’s suicide, following reports of beatings by Foxconn security personnel.

HP, Dell, and Apple, all of whom have products being manufactured at Foxconn, have all announced that they will investigate the working conditions, according to Wired.

The latest suicide follows the news that employees at Foxconn had recently been asked to sign a letter confirming that the company would not pay any more than the legal minimum wage for “injuries sustained outside of the workplace.” After the letter was made public, the Chairman of Hon Hai, which owns Foxconn, said that the letter was being taken back because the language was inappropriate.

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Zachary Farina at 3:11pm 16th October 2010 sad. . . . sad. . . . sad. . . People give up when they exhaust their KNOWN solutions. Before anyone else gives up, let me direct you to several resources that helped me to win a very lucrative settlement from my employer: www.badreferences.com; whistleblower.org; bullybusters.org. Don't give up.
Sebastian11 at 2:37pm 12th September 2010 Terry Gou is a heartless, ruthless, fascist,$5.9 billionaire thug, who owns Foxconn and has slave labor factories all over China. He has about 920,000 workers lacked up in factory complexes, with dormitories, 12 to a room. Their wages consist of 31 cents an hour, in 35 hour shifts. They are forced to work with no breaks 16 hours a day. When he was asked why did these 11 workers commit suicide, he said he had no idea. "They love their jobs so much they can't stand not working." He ordered nets to be installed around the outside of the dormitories, to catch the would be suicides before they hit the ground. My question is why do American computer and cell phone companies do business with a corporaton that does not even allow basic human rights to its workers?
1. Adithya at 12:17am 13th September 2010 Good hard facts. Amercian corporations, like corporations in any country looks at profirts only. Unfortunately the Americal public does not see these facts, and they see only what the "media" shows them. Today there is hue and cry about services outsourcing and strong sentiments are expressed on this. Countries such as Brazil, Philiphines, India etc., are made to look like villians taking away AMerical jons. However, Americal public does not realize that the single biggest threat to the American economy and the American way of life comes from China. China does not operate by any rule or any of the fundamenta principles on which a great democracy such as US works on. Sooner the Americal public understand this the better.
Foxconn’s Wage Hikes Will Increase Costs at 5:43pm 22nd July 2010 [...] Although the current news is the latest domino to drop following a spate of suicides that left 11 dead in six months, at least one and possibly more dead from exhaustive work shifts, and an undisclosed [...]