Working At Foxconn - Life Without Dignity

An open letter was revealed these days by a big group of Chinese sociologists, where it is said that Foxconn employees continue to commit suicides because of a situation with China's migrant workforce. The latter has tremendously increased recently, and such workers are often isolated from their family and friends and instead of looking for good jobs they work and get paid too poorly to settle in new cities. Moreover, they have a limited access to healthcare and education.

"We have made them live a migrancy life that is rootless and helpless, where families are separated, parents have no one to support them, and children are not taken care of. In short, this is a life without dignity."

It is mentioned in the letter that the population of Shenzhen (a city where Foxconn plant with 600,000 employees is situated) at the end of 2008 exceeded 12 million though only 2,28 million have been registered as permanent residents.

The sociologists demand from Chinese central government and Foxconn to improve quality of life for workers by boosting wages and improving access to education, healthcare and housing.

"We call on every enterprise, to make a conscientious effort to increase migrant workers‘ pay and rights, and allow migrant workers to become true “citizens of the enterprise”."