At the beginning of the month, over 300 employees at a plant for the company Foxconn threatened mass suicide via a trip off of the roof. The company manufactures products for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, although this particular plant exclusively mills out Microsoft products. According to an anti-government website China Jasmine Revolution, these particular workers were denied compensation promised to them.
The same date these suicide threats were made, workers had asked for a raise. The company informed them that they could either keep their jobs and receive no increased pay, or lose their jobs and receive compensation (which hardly seems fair). Most workers decided to quit with compensation, which could allude to how little they were being paid. However, the company had terminated the deal and these workers, now without their jobs, never received their payments.
The resulting revolt had over 300 workers ready to jump off of the factory, and caused the Microsoft products that they produce to be temporarily halted in production. The mayor of Wuhan, China, which is where this factory operates, managed to talk the employees down from their threats and at 9pm on January 3rd, the group decided not to jump.
Microsoft had commented to Kotaku in 2010 regarding abuse in the Foxconn workplace: “Foxconn has been an important partner of ours and remains an important partner. I trust them as a responsible company to continue to evolve their process and work relationships. That is something we remain committed to—the safe and ethical treatment of people who build our products. That’s a core value of our company.” Clearly they should intervene, as they are Microsoft products being produced and clearly all is not well at the plant.
[Sources: Want China Times and Record China]
[Image via Want China Times]
