When the number of suicides touched double digits on May 21, I decided to express my opinion in these pages, citing social injustice (including capital's ruthless exploitation of labor) as the root cause of employee despair.
On the morning of May 25, just as I was working on the piece, another Foxconn employee leapt to his death at the Longhua plant.
After revising the figure from 10 to 11 in my article, I inadvertently thought: "Will there be a 12th such attempt?" Immediately, I chided myself for that ominous thought.
Unfortunately, the 12th suicide did occur the following day - a migrant worker from Northwest China's Gansu province jumped to his death from the seventh floor of his dormitory building at the plant.
More horrifying, just five hours later, another employee from Central China's Hunan province slashed his wrists in an attempt to kill himself.
In less than 48 hours, three workers in the same plant had attempted suicide.
What a terrible thing!
The suicides could only have been driven by absolute despair, I thought.
What caused such misery? Low wages, forced extra work hours, little expectation of change in work conditions and lack of emotional support from colleagues.
No trade union official was at hand to indulge in "heart-to-heart talks", much less fight for better remuneration on behalf of workers.
Foxconn's boss obviously understood the reason behind the suicides. The company soon raised the standard monthly wages of its assembly line workers from 900 to 1,200 yuan, and announced a plan to further raise it to 2,000 yuan by October.
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