Presentation from Mabel Au, from China

Dear participants,

Thank you for inviting me to give a presentation at this workshop. It is my pleasure to have a chance for participating in this experience sharing. Hopefully, the exchange can help us to develop alternative program on gender and labour issue.

I would like to begin my presentation with the recent story of “Foxconn Jump”!  

This is Tian Yu. (ppt.1) The media gave her another title -- the “4th Jump”. Tian Yu is seventeen years old, she came from a small town in South China. She began to work at Foxconn at last May. After a month of work, she could not get her salary. She was told to get her salary at another Foxconn branch office which located at another city. She got on a bus which took her an hour to get to the other branch office. However, the office management at  another city told her they could not find her record therefore they were not responsible for her salary.  Since she had used up the money given by her parent, she had to go back to the factory on foot. She was very worry for having no money to send back to her family. Besides, she was very frustrated by being kicking back and forth by the Foxconn management. Finally, she went up to the factory roof top and jump down. Although her life was not taken away, she became paralyzed and have to be taken care by others for the rest of her life.

According to the research done by the SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior ), a labour concerned group from Hong Kong, Foxconn had been operated  in a very inhuman management policy for a long time. Tian Yu was the 4th Jump out of the 17 Foxconn workers who attempted to commit suicide in the Southern part of China. At Foxconn assembly line, talking and chatting were strictly forbidden. The management also deliberately separated the workers came from the same home town in order to avoid them grouping to became a potential collective force. Therefore all the workers were living in a lonely life and work like a machine in the factory.  

Tian yu is only one of the millions rural migrant workers’ stories. China was given a title of “the Factory of the World”. The Chinese government have always been proud of her economic development from the last tree decades, sadly,the government did not seriously address the exploitative working condition of the labour force. Besides, many local government even colluded with the capital to suppress the workers to voice out their demand. The suicide cases from Foxconn were actually a desperate way of protest which showed the world how exploitative the working condition in China could be.  

Exploitative working condition

The gender profile of the young migrant workers in the EPZ in China (Export Processing Zone) is still very similar to the EPZ in other countries. The workers at the assembly line of the manufacturing factories are predominantly young women. Low wage and long working hours are still the two major issues in terms of working condition. According to the SACOM’s report of Workers as Machines: Military Management at Foxconn, the monthly food consumption in Shenzhun is RMB 613 so the living wage should be RMB 2293 (USD 344). Since the “Foxconn Jump” happened, the local government of Shenzhun City had raised the minimum wage from RMB 1100 (USD165) to RMB 1200 (USD 180). Most of the factories only pay the minimum wage or just a hundred more of the minimum wage to the workers. Even the workers work very hard to get more overtime compensation, the average wage level was only up to RMB 1836.6 (USD267) which is still below the living wage level of RMB 2293(USD 334). As the living cost is increasing in the cities, the workers have to take up more overtime work and cut all the leisure expense in order to send money back to their family.  

Apart from low wages and long working hours, workers also suffered from the loose monitoring policy on occupational health and safety. Despite a new law on occupational health and safety was put up by the central government in 2008, the implementation of the law is always a problem in China. Particularly, at the area of occupational diseases. Let’s take the example of the Golden Peak (GP) Group which is a Hong Kong based investment specialised in batteries manufacturing.  

According to the done by Globalization Monitor, a labour concerned group based in Hong Kong, there were workers who had been diagnosed of excessive Cadimum in their body since 2004. Cadimum would caused kidney failure, cancer and serious bone pains. This substance were employed in battery manufacturing, it is banned in many developed countries. The terrible fact was that GM found that not only the workers was poisoned but the children from the female workers also carried high level of Cadimum in their body. However, even the workers went to the court with strong evidence to show they were actually poisoned during the production process when they work for GP group, the local court ruled in favor of the company. The workers could not get compensation.  

This situation is very similar to the female electronic workers who suffered from different kinds of cancer after they work for the electronic product manufacturing. The problem is lack of monitoring on the use of chemical in the manufacturing process. The workers were not protected by regular body check. The workers only found the problem after they fell sick and left their working position. Then the sickness became more serious and even develop to be cancer. The factory would argued that the sickness was not developed during the worker was employed. Therefore the factory is not responsible for the sickness. Then factory will use all kind of means to get collaboration from the local government suppress the workers to put further their case.  

Absence of life prospect

Most of the migrant workers left their home town to work in the city in their teens. They might expect to develop their own family and urban life in the city. However, given the very low wages and the ever increasing living cost, the dream of develop their urban life is less possible. With the very restrictive management policy from the factory, the young workers felt very lonely. Some academic suggested that because of the frustration and loneliness, the young workers resort to commit suicide. I think we need some more evidence to support this analysis. Nevertheless, I do agreed that lack of prospect is one of the problem faced by the young women workers in the EPZ. From 2006-2009, I have interviewed with few women workers on the issue of home return. I found there was a very specific gendered situation of the women workers need our further attention.

Many of the women workers told me that they were pushed or encouraged to work in the factories by family financial burden at the age of 15 to 17. After 10 years of work in the city, they were targeted to be retrenched by the factories. Therefore, they will reach at a conjunction of either stay at the city and shift to service industry or return home to get marry. Most of them expressed that they would like to stay in the city. However they are also very concern on the chance of marriage. If they do not get marry at the age of 25, it would be less chance for them to get marry. The depressing fact is they are not supposed to stay with their parent’s family after they return to their home town even they have make big contribution to the family. Since grown up daughter are expected to get marry and move to another family soon after their teens. So this, it showed that the factory, government, the family and the community had never concern on the development of the women workers. The women workers were only treated as production machines, salary earner (not bread winner) and married out daughter.  

There are many other facts I would like to share with you. Due the time limit of my presentation, I stop here. Your questions are most welcome in the discussion session.

Thank you very much.

Nov 2010

Mabel Au

Organizer of the Association for the Advancement of Feminism

Freelance trainer and program consultant for Chinese women workers