inside foxconn shenzhen - where your pc components come from

[kaini]

http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/20080827Fox.htm#

 

Basic Fact

 

This report on Foxconn Corporation provides a description of one of the production sections on site, focusing mainly on the electronic section of CCPBG. The report also discusses issues such as the factory's general living and food conditions

 

CCPBG focuses its production on video game consoles, computer CD r CD-RW ? DVD±RW ? DVD-RAM ? DVD-Dual ? DVD-Multi , and laptop parts. Its primary clients are Lenovo, Nintendo, Sony, and Philip .

 

There are six production belts on CCPBG's production site, and each production belt consists of about 40 workers. Currently only five production belts are operating, producing CD ROMs for Sony, Lenovo and Philip.

 

Work Hours and Work Environment

 

Excluding supervisors and quality assurance technicians, workers from four of the five currently operating production belts are recruited from the general populace, and another belt consists of college interns from a university in Sichuan .

 

The schedule below, however, only applies to college interns. Full-time workers begin their afternoon and overtime work at 12 PM and 5 PM, resulting in only 30 minutes for lunch and afternoon breaks. From the schedule, one can see that a college intern works ten hours daily, and regular workers work about 11 to 12 hours daily.

 

 

 

Morning

 

Lunch Break

 

Afternoon

 

Break

 

Overtime

 

Regular Workers

 

8 : 00AM—11 : 30AM

 

11 : 30AM—12 : 30PM

 

12 : 30PM—4 : 30PM

 

4 : 30PM—5:30PM

 

5 : 30PM—

 

8 : 00PM

 

College Intern

 

8 : 00AM—11 : 30AM

 

11 : 30AM—12 : 00PM

 

12 : 00PM—4 : 30PM

 

4 : 30PM—5:00PM

 

5 : 00PM—

 

8 : 00PM

 

In terms of off days, regular workers have one off day every two weeks, and college interns are entitled to one rest day a week. When the production site is in need of mass production, both regular workers and college interns can only have one off day a month.

 

While according to the schedule workers do not have to begin work until 8AM, CCPBG requires workers to be present at the production site no later than 7:50AM with no payment for the ten extra minutes. Thus, under the nation's work day regulation of 24 regular working days a month, each month, workers are given wages for 240 minutes, thus compensated for four hours fewer than they deserve.

 

Because the production site manufactures by production belts, workers often experience difficulty in requesting days off.

 

According to CCPBG, overtime is voluntary. However, since workers earn very little base wage for working only regular hours, they generally volunteer to work overtime. Even when workers request not to work overtime, their requests are usually denied.

 

Workers are able to have short ten minute breaks at 10 AM and 2:30 PM. During the breaks, workers are able to stretch, drink water, or use the bathroom, though leaving the production site is prohibited. On CCPBG production site, workers are required to stand while working. Moreover, according to workers, in the entire Foxconn campus, only workers producing merchandises for Apple are offered a stool to sit while working. Since workers are required to stand at the same place for hours when working, during the break, almost all the workers would sit down and rest on the benches at the rest area, and some workers even sit down on the floor near their post right when the break begins (Due to work regulations, workers are required to take off their shoes before entering the production site.)

 

Each production belt has a set quota. If workers fail to reach the required production quota, their hours will be extended without payment. For instance, CCPBG sets the quota of assembling 1,550 Sony CD-ROMs within the ten hour work day on a production belt for college interns. Should the quota not be fulfilled by 8 PM on that day, the interns would have to work extended hours for free to complete the quota. Because regular workers are experienced and are able to accomplish requirements on time, the quotas on their production belts are much higher.

 

Though professionals, regular workers are often lectured by supervisors for the slightest mistake. An interviewed regular worker expressed, “As a Foxconn worker, I cannot treat myself as a human being.” He suggested that a human being has self-esteem, but he does not. Compared to regular workers, college interns generally do not receive lectures.

 

Work Safety and Health

 

Before working full-time, workers receive training regarding safety production. Workshop does provide adequate safety equipments such as face mask or gloves to workers. In the workshop, fans, air conditioners, and other ventilation systems are installed.

 

In terms of insurance, among 11 interviewed regular workers, three are unsure whether they are insured with work injury or medical, five stated that there is only work injury insurance, and three said there is medical insurance, but are uncertain whether they are insured with work injury insurance. All eight college interns stated that they are not insured.

 

Wages

 

CCPBG complies with Shenzhen City 's minimum wage requirement of 750 RMB, 21.75 work days a month, and eight regular daily work hours.

 

Example:

 

Subject

 

Base Wage

 

Regular Overtime

 

Off day Overtime

 

Holiday Overtime

 

Wage

 

750RMB/Month

 

6.46RMB/Hour

 

8.62RMB/Hour

 

12.93RMB/Hour

 

Average

 

750RMB/Month

 

44Hours= 284RMB

 

40Hours= 344RMB

 

Total Earned= 1378RMB

 

The chart above uses a worker working 10 hours a day, six days a week as an example. From the chart, one can see that with 44 hours of regular overtime and 40 hours of off day overtime a month, the worker is able to earn approximately 1,378 RMB a month. However, without any overtime, the worker is only able to receive the minimum of 750 RMB, a paltry wage to cover living expenses, let alone encourage upward social mobility.

 

On the 11 th of each month, CCPBG distributes payment to workers along with a pay stub. The pay stub includes information such as number of hours worked, overtime hours, base wage, overtime wage, and etc. Though there has not been a case of wage arrear, according to a few interviewed workers, there has been cases of miscalculation of overtime hours from five to eight hours less, and even after raising the issue to the management, the problem has yet to be solved.

 

 

 

Living and Food Conditions

 

Factory canteens have TV, air conditioners or fans on site. A large canteen has the capacity to accommodate 1,000 people, and a small one has the capacity to accommodate 300. Among 17 interviewed workers, 14 are satisfied with the canteen food, and three are not so pleased, mainly due to the crowding and noise.

 

Canteens are operated by a third-party food company. The factory deposits 11 RMB, the maximum daily spending, on each work day into workers' meal card account. Unless working, such as on off days or holidays, workers are responsible for their own meal expenses. In addition, at the end of each month, the factory clears the remaining amount on each worker's meal card, and workers are not able to rollover unused meal credits to the following month.

 

Factory canteens provide three meals each day. Breakfast consists of bread, soy milk, fried noodle or rice. Each entrée costs 0.5 RMB, and workers are able to choose three entrées. The maximum spending for lunch is 4.5 RMB, and workers can choose one meat and two vegetable dishes, or one meat and two vegetable dishes. Moreover, workers can also choose the prepared meal which includes fried rice or noodles, sausage and chicken leg. The limit for dinner is 5 RMB. Workers have same choices as the lunch meal, but are also given a choice of a fruit. Although self-service rice and soup is provided during lunch and dinner at no cost, it is prohibited to leave leftover rice. After finishing up the meal and returning the plates and utensils, there are employees designated to check for left over food. If one has left rice uneaten on the plate, he or she will be asked to finish it. If the worker had not eaten the rice because there was no entree left, he can have free refill for any entrée until there is no rice remaining. If the worker did not finish the rice for other reasons, he is asked to give a sufficient reason. Such requirements put workers under tremendous pressure. When asked if there is any penalty for not being able to finish the rice, among seven workers, one said it leads to a small warning and six were unsure.

 

There are employees taking complaints for food in the canteen, ranging from bad food quality to sanitation issues. Most workers said very few people have filed complaints, thus giving these employees an easy job.

 

Dormitories are built on site at Foxconn. The buildings had originally been workshops, but they were renovated into open spaces for workers to live in. The sizes of the dormitories vary: a big dormitory room has the capacity to house a couple hundred workers, and a small one can house about 30 workers. Since there are only fans installed in the dormitories, workers have complained that they felt suffocated when they first moved in.

 

According to workers, each dormitory floor has a public shower and restroom shared among about 300 workers. There is also a room for drinking water on each floor. Interviewed workers have called the dormitory a “garbage dorm.”

 

more after the link

[Guest Space Coyote]

The maximum spending for lunch is 4.5 RMB, and workers can choose one meat and two vegetable dishes, or one meat and two vegetable dishes

 

Is that meant to be bleakly funny or is it meant to say something else?

[Guest abracadabra]

look 'ere commie, I bought this computer with hard-earned good American dollars. I don't give a rat's ass about no gahdamn chinee screwin' nuts and bolts in my floppy disk drive

 

[/sarcasm]

[Guest tv_party]

slackers

[Joyrex]

And this, world, is why your iPods are so inexpensive.

[chenGOD]

In Korea, office workers are usually at the office (for companies like Samsung, LG, Hyundai) from 7am-10pm 5 or 6 days a week. They earn more of course, but the cost of living in Korea is much higher than in China (although Shanghai is expensive for expats, but still not as expensive as Korea).

 

In America many parents have to work 2 or 3 jobs as to make ends meet and they're hardly socially upwards.

 

If you really care, stop buying shit that's labeled made in china(cambodia, laos, whatever). don't shop at walmart.

[triachus]

If you really care, stop buying shit that's labeled made in china(cambodia, laos, whatever).

 

Yes, so that those companies receive less money and eventually will go bankrupt and all the employees lose their jobs and the little income they've had... wich is still better than nothing

 

 

A shitty situation, yes. But not buying anything doesn't change much... Best way is to start a political party in that country and win elections and gain power and propose laws to make sure people don't work in such insane conditions

 

 

That's what i think anyway.. might be wrong tho

[Guest theSun]

the solution to this is a heavy american import tariff!!

[chenGOD]

If you really care, stop buying shit that's labeled made in china(cambodia, laos, whatever).

 

Yes, so that those companies receive less money and eventually will go bankrupt and all the employees lose their jobs and the little income they've had... wich is still better than nothing

 

 

A shitty situation, yes. But not buying anything doesn't change much... Best way is to start a political party in that country and win elections and gain power and propose laws to make sure people don't work in such insane conditions

 

 

That's what i think anyway.. might be wrong tho

 

Yes, you go start a political party in china, let us know how that works out.

 

China is basically every corporation's wet dream come to life. Pay the worker's shit while the government stifles any dissent.

[chaosmachine]

You should see the sweat shops we have set up to run the WATMM database. Hundreds of little kids hand pasting bits to a giant spreadsheet.

[chenGOD]

Shhhh CM...the Canadian governemnt frowns on child labor...