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Want China Times
Dozens of workers assembling Xbox video game consoles
climbed to a factory dormitory roof, and some threatened to jump to
their deaths, in a dispute over job transfers that was defused but
highlights growing labor unrest as China's economy slows.
The dispute was set off after contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology
Group announced it would close the assembly line for Microsoft Corp.'s
Xbox 360 models at its plant in the central city of Wuhan and transfer
the workers to other jobs, workers and Foxconn said Thursday.
Workers reached by telephone said Foxconn initially offered severance
pay for those who wanted to leave rather than be transferred, but then
reneged, angering the workers; Foxconn, in a statement, disputed that
account, saying only transfers were offered, not severance.
The workers climbed to the top of the six-story dormitory on Jan. 3 and
threatened to jump before Wuhan city officials persuaded them to desist
and return to work, according to the workers and accounts online. The
workers gave varying estimates of the numbers involved in the strike,
from 80 to 200, and photos posted online showed dozens of people
crowding the roof of the boxy concrete building.
"Actually none of them were going to jump. They were there for the
compensation. But the government and the company officials were just as
afraid, because if even one of them jumped, the consequences would be
hard to imagine," said Wang Jungang, an equipment engineer in the Xbox
production line, who left the plant earlier this month.
The fracas is the latest labor trouble to hit Foxconn, a unit of
Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. that makes iPads and iPhones for
Apple Inc. as well as Xboxes and other gadgets, helping consumer
electronics brands hold down costs. Its massive China plants are run
with military-like discipline, which labor rights activists say
contributed to spate of suicides in 2010.
Foxconn said that all workers on the Xbox line were offered transfers at
their current pay but that 150 demanded severance and not all of them
participated in the rooftop protest. "It is our understanding that
certain individuals threatened to jump from the building if their
demands were not met," the statement said.
Strikes and other job actions have risen in recent months across China
as factories cope with rising costs, scarce credit and declining orders
from Europe, the United States and domestic companies. Complicating
matters is the approaching Lunar New Year, a time when many of the
migrant workers who man factories quit jobs to return home temporarily
before looking for better paying employment.
Foxconn's Wuhan plant employs 32,000 people. The site previously had a
couple of suicides or attempted ones a couple years back, prompting the
government to take over the operations of the dormitories, said Wang,
the equipment engineer.
After the rooftop protest, Microsoft said in a statement that it
investigated, finding that the dispute centered on Foxconn's staffing
and transfer policies, not working conditions. "After the protest, the
majority of workers chose to return to work. A smaller portion of those
employees elected to resign, the statement said.
Ultimately, Foxconn said, 45 of the employees resigned from the company
while the rest chose to stay. It did not say whether the resigning
workers were given compensation. Wang, the engineer, said he received
$4,700 (30,000 yuan) in compensation but that was because he planned his
departure early, telling his supervisor six months ago he would leave. |
