•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Taipei. The Taiwanese electronics company buffeted by a spate of suicides at its factories in China will raise workers’ salaries by an average of 20 percent.

Ten workers have now killed themselves and three have attempted suicide at Foxconn’s operations in southern China this year, mainly workers who jumped from buildings. The most recent suicide attempt involved a 25-year-old man who slashed his wrists in the factory dormitory on Thursday. Another Foxconn worker committed suicide this year in northern China.

Labor activists have accused the company of having a rigid management style, an excessively fast assembly line and forced overtime.

A Foxconn official on Friday confirmed it was set to raise the salary of its assembly line staff but said the plan was not conceived in response to the suicides. The raise applies to all of its plants in China and could be implemented as early as next month.

The company, part of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world’s largest contract maker of electronics. Its long list of big-name customers include Apple, Sony, Dell, Nokia and Hewlett-Packard.

Dozens of demonstrators protested on Friday outside Hon Hai’s Taipei headquarters, urging it to improve treatment of its workers and paying their respects to the dead workers.

“We urge Hon Hai to respect life and to stop its inhuman and militarized treatment of workers aimed at maximizing profits,” organiser Lin Tzu-wen said. “The workers have to stand all day and they are not allowed to talk. They are treated almost like machines in a sweatshop environment.”

Also on Friday, Nokia and Sony said they were looking into conditions at the factory, following similar pledges by Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

“Given the concerning reports, we are in continuous contact with Foxconn to ensure any issues are identified and addressed as soon as possible,” Nokia said.

Japanese electronics titan Sony said it required suppliers to adhere to a code of conduct and would investigate conditions.

Foxconn chairman Terry Gou led a media tour of the company’s mammoth industrial park in Shenzhen this week and promised to work harder to prevent more deaths.

The Foxconn chairman showed off a motherboard factory, hotline call center and even a swimming pool for employees.

The walled-in industrial park, where 300,000 people work, resembles a small city, with palm tree-lined streets, fast-food restaurants, banks and a bookstore among huge factory buildings and towering dormitories.

 

AP, AFP