Suicide

Employer Foxconn has said that production workers could get up to £200 a month if they pass a three-month performance review and this comes after they got a 30 percent pay rise last week. This will mean that their £90 a month basic pay will have more than doubled since employee suicides started in May.

Terry Gou, Foxconn founder and chairman, said, “This wage increase has been instituted to safe guard the dignity of workers, accelerate economic transformation, support Foxconn’s long-term objective of continued evolution from a manufacturing leader to a technology leader and to rally and sustain the best of our workforce.”

This factory in Longhua, southern China, has seen ten workers commit suicide this year. Another worker died in late May from what his family said was overwork – a claim denied by Foxconn. Apple boss Steve Jobs has called recent suicides troubling but last week said that the plant was not a sweatshop.