Skip to main content

Foxconn to Give Up Control of its Dormitories

Things have not been going particularly well for Taiwanese-based Hon Hai’s Foxconn factories in China. A rash of suicides recently brought an intense level of scrutiny from around the world to bare on the factory that produces some of the world’s best-selling, and best-known electronic equipment. Hon Hai then made a series of blunders that further enraged the people following the story, including an infamous letter to employees that asked them to sign a pledge to not kill themselves.

Eventually, the pressure on Hon Hai resulted in a promise to increase wages, in some case to more than double the current pay offered. At first it seemed like a generous move, but it soon appeared that the move was made without much thought to the repercussions, plus many continued to criticize the factory owners for not addressing the conditions that led to Foxconn being dubbed as a “sweatshop.”

As the PR nightmare continued to mount, Hon Hai declared that it was considering a “take our ball and go home” strategy, and might be moving the bulk of its manufacturing away from China to the heavily automated Taiwanese plants, and the Vietnam, where the wages are lower.

Now, Foxconn has addressed one of the many issues that human labor activists have criticized it for: the living conditions. Management of the 153 dormitories that house many of the more than 450,000 employees will now be handed over to local Chinese property-management groups.

“Providing employees with basic necessities including a safe and convenient place to live at the work-site might have been sufficient in the past, but this arrangement no longer satisfies the needs of the young migrant workers of today,” Terry Cheng, Foxconn’s corporate executive vice-president, said in a statement to Reuters.

The new housing would begin to charge rent, but Foxconn is preparing a housing allowance for its employees. No word yet on when the handover will be official, but the deal with Chinese-based property-management companies, Shenzhen CPM Property Management, and Kaiyuan Property Management has been agreed to.

Editors' Recommendations

Ryan Fleming
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…
It’s time for social media platforms to grow up
Twitter Fact Check

Last week was a big news week. The pandemic rolled on as the U.S. exceeded 100,000 deaths from COVID-19. Unemployment got worse. Minneapolis police started a national firestorm with the death in custody of a black man, George Floyd. And oh, by the way, the Chinese became more aggressive in Hong Kong and the economy continued to flounder despite baby steps toward reopening.

With that news backdrop, it was easy to miss President Donald Trump’s latest shots in an attack on social media networks -- specifically Twitter and Facebook.

Read more
Twitter now lets you schedule tweets via its web app. Here’s how to do it
twitter suspends british journalists account over criticism of nbc

Sometimes you might have a great idea for a tweet but don’t want to post it straight away. While a bunch of third-party tools already offer tweet scheduling, Twitter itself has just launched the feature for its web app.

We first heard that Twitter was testing tweet scheduling in November 2019, and on Thursday, May 28, the company announced it was rolling the feature out to one and all.

Read more
Facebook’s Shops give small businesses an Etsy-like place to sell goods online
facebook shops

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of Facebook Shops, a tool that lets small business owners set up an online storefront for free.

Zuckerberg said Tuesday that businesses could set up a Facebook Shop for free -- a shot across the bow for competitors like Etsy.

Read more