富士康自杀风波

　【时事聚焦】 2010年的发生的最大民生事件就是富士康的自杀事件。我们就来看一下整个事件的回放，以下是英国BBC对于该事件的报道：

　　Foxconn suicides: “Workers feel quite lonely”

　　A string of suicides at a factory in China owned by Taiwan firm Foxconn has highlighted what some say is a stressful working environment for migrant workers. Foxconn says it is employing trained counsellors and installing more leisure facilities at the factory in Shenzhen to help its staff, as well as increasing salaries to boost morale.

　　Here, people who have worked at or visited the plant describe the working atmosphere which many have blamed for the suicides. There is a suspicion being floated that some of the people who committed suicide, did it for money. The math works like this: the average employee earns about 2,000 yuan per month ($295:£200), but the company pays 100,000 yuan compensation to the family of anyone dying on site. To an unstable 20 year-old, the thought of that much money going to their parents could be attractive.

　　The morale at the factory was very low when I was training there. Young engineers referred to the company as Foxconn University – a place to get a couple of years’ experience after graduating, and before moving on to a more relaxed job. There’s a recreation centre, but the engineers I was training told me they had never been there. Then I saw on TV that there’s a stress room full of these dolls that look like Japanese warriors. You get a bat and you beat them. That’s how they are encouraged to relieve the stress.

　　The security at Foxconn has always been extremely tight. On arriving at the main gate, visitors had to surrender their passports to the guards and bags were searched. If one wanted to enter any of the manufacturing or training areas within the campus, there would be further checkpoints to be negotiated and additional passes issued. When confronted with security on this scale, it’s easy to compare the place to a prison.

　　Anonymous Foxconn worker (Interview by the BBC’s Chinese service)

　　After work we go for a walk, we get online, sometimes we go together outside the supermarket to watch TV on a big screen. Life here is OK. Workers don’t have much time to communicate with each other and they feel quite lonely. We work six days a week with one day off and every day we work two hours overtime. The salary is quite low for newcomers, the lowest in Shenzhen, but once you’ve been here a while, it gets better. I’ve also heard that salaries will be increased.

　　Anonymous former Foxconn employee (Interview by the BBC’s Chinese service)

　　I currently live and work in Ireland. Before that I worked in project management for Foxconn. The job often involved visiting the manufacturing sites in China with our customers before and during production ramp-up. The factories themselves are top notch although they are fairly intense working environments. Westerners would find it very difficult to work there. Employees have to work long days and many of the staff were working at least six days a week. So it was very common to hear of people being burnt out.