Technology giant Foxconn has been described as a 'labour camp' that severely violates China's labour laws and abuses workers physically and mentally, in a research report jointly produced by 20 universities in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland.
The 83-page report draws on interviews with more than 1,800 workers from 12 Foxconn-owned factories in nine mainland cities. It found fresh evidence that the Taiwanese giant forces assembly-line employees to work double or triple the legal limit on overtime. It describes a Spartan management style, extensive employment of teenage students, and failure to report a considerable number of industrial injuries for which workers were unable to receive statutory compensation.
It found that at least 17 Foxconn workers had attempted to commit suicide since January - of whom 13 died - rather than the 14 suicide attempts widely reported by the Hong Kong media.
The report also claimed that measures reportedly designed to address workers' grievances - including large pay rises and mental health services - deceived the public; workers complained they did not benefit from the new measures.
In a joint open letter, researchers from the 20 universities urged Terry Gou - chairman of Foxconn's Taiwanese parent company, Hon Hai Precision Industry - to respect workers' legal rights and fulfil the company's social responsibilities.
'Terry Gou publicly blamed personal problems for the suicide attempts and the media reported that Foxconn planned to expand its workforce to 1.5 million people across the mainland. We worried about what a fast-expanding enterprise, without thorough introspection about the suicide tragedies, would bring to its workers,' the letter said.