Peter Schnall
and Erin Wigger
Under pressure from the media and labor
rights organizations after a spate of suicides at the Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant,
Apple hired the U.S.-based Fair Labor Association (FLA) to conduct an
independent audit of working conditions at the plant.
The FLA report (released this past March and
based on 35,500 worker interviews) identified numerous major problems including
very long work hours (up to 80 hours per week), excessive and often unpaid overtime,
as well as safety violations. In response to the report Apple and Foxconn both pledged
their commitment to improving conditions by cutting workloads, improving safety
protocols and bettering worker dormitories (1). But have they?
There is some evidence of change at
Foxconn. In response to the FLA report they raised the
wages of some workers in Shenzhen by 16 to 25 percent (2, 3). They have also reportedly dropped the number of overtime hours
worked though the exact total now being worked is unclear. Chinese labor laws
permit a maximum of 49 hours per week.
Despite the higher hourly wages, Foxconn’s compliance with Chinese weekly work limits
has resulted in an average overall decrease
in salaries for many. Though hourly cuts may better the physical health of
workers who said they experienced pain and fatigue after long shifts, many reported to
the FLA that, because their wages “were not sufficient to
pay for health care or education, ….they wanted to work more to earn more
money” (4, 5). Additionally workers now complain that they
are forced to work unpaid overtime and
are even less able to support themselves and their extended families without the
extra income earned through overtime. (6, 7). There is also some debate
as to whether work hours have actually been cut, and if so by how much. The China
Labor Watch (CLW) reports in their June 27th publication on Apple
suppliers in China that work hours at the plant still far exceed 49 (8).
So far, changes
at the plant seem more geared at appeasing the press than actually improving the
health and safety of their workers. It’s hard to imagine that the Chinese
government is unaware of working conditions at Foxconn plants and that they
have not given tacit approval to Foxconn policies. This is particularly true in
light of the fact that the FLA found 43
instances of Foxconn violations of Chinese labor laws and regulations, only
one of which seems to have been partially remedied (work hours) (5, 9).
According to Foxconn
workers interviewed by CLW, nothing appears to have been done about existing physical
environmental hazards and they are quoted as saying that “there are occupational hazard issues in
some workshops, mainly radiation, chemicals and dust. Even though the factory
provided occupational safety and health training to workers, there is little
content, making the training largely symbolic.” Joint, musculoskeletal, and
other types of injuries due to jobs with repetitive motions have also not been
addressed.
In their investigation the FLA found that
many workers did not realize that there was union representation and if they did they doubted that
the unions available to them provided “true worker representation” due to the
fact these groups are dominated by management-selected nominees, (4, 5). Following
the FLA study, workers interviewed by both CLW and Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM ) were still unaware of their overall rights as workers and whether or not
they themselves were represented by any sort of union (7, 8). Of course, functional unions
representing worker’s interests have proven themselves critical to the process
of improving working conditions.
Additionally, there is also a conspicuous
lack of news on changes addressing non-work conditions – such as quality of
food (which many Foxconn workers complain is unhygienic and tasteless) and poor
living accommodations (see CLW report), – even though both Apple and Foxconn promised improvements to
the over-crowded worker dormitories.
One important issue continues to be
ignored and this is the poor psychosocial work environment at the plants and
the role work stressors play in the negative health outcomes of workers. Work stressors
include, work intensity and speed-up, long work hours (this appears to have been
partially addressed), organizational justice, effort-reward imbalance, low
social support, job strain and threat-avoidant vigilance, to name a few. The FLA
as well as CLW either ignore psychosocial factors or aren’t aware of their
importance. Nor has anyone examined the impact of these psychosocial stressors on
the negative psychological health outcomes plaguing this population of workers -
observable by the significant number of suicides the plant has experienced over
the last few years. Until these issues are addressed work life at Foxconn will
not significantly improve and we can expect continued and perhaps increasing negative
health outcomes.
