The plight of migrant laborers world over is no secret anymore
“The development of China as a world factory is a fundamental reason causing these suicidal cases”, remarked Pun Ngai, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, in the aftermath of spate of suicides that has claimed nine lives so far this year at Foxconn electronic plant near the sprawling city of Shenzhen in southern China. This has surely exposed the dirty linen of China’s factory system, regarding which nine professors of social science wrote an open letter to Foxconn questioning the very sustainability of China’s pivotal position as the workshop of the world. This is not a case in isolation. Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, the largest sports and casual shoe maker in the world, had a rash of four suicides between July and October 2008. ‘China Labor Watch’ has identified more than 80 cases of suicides in Pearl Harbor Delta of China in last 10 years.
Over the last 30 years, China’s internal mobility and consequently their plight has risen manifold with 200 million migrants leaving their home in search of better life. To a large extent, the country dependson these cheap labourers to counterfeit an export-oriented style world factory, which stimulated double digit growth rate for the economy. But in the bargain, basic human rights of these hapless labourers been ignored; they were paid a wage that was below the average of Third World countries; and made it impossible for them to live in cities as they could not encounter the problems of housing, their children’s education and healthcare, and other survival necessitates. The use of cheap labour has been a strategic choice for China in the first period of its reforms — was not without its own weaknesses — as low wage growth depressed the purchasing power and consequently consumer demand that restricted the sustainable growth of the country. This kind of development model, at least today, is bound to repeat Foxconn like tragedies; as unlike their parent’s generation today’s urban laborers cannot return home to be peasants again.
Not only in China, this kind of misfortune takes place even in developed country with strong labour laws like in France as well! In France Telecom, one of the largest companies in telecom sector, 34 employees committed suicide between January 2008 and January 2010, blaming it on stress and desolation at work. France Telecom’s suicide rate is 15.3 per 1,00,000 per year, more than national average of 14.7. The suicide rates of expatriate workers are always high in Gulf States like Bahrain, but the latest figures available for 2008 shows an alarming rise that has goaded a nationwide action to help the endured. Most suicides are by poor labourers — 131 of them have committed suicides in Bahrain alone in 2008 — often because of miserable working conditions and low pay. In Kuwait, the situation is no better, as official rate of suicides by migrant workers is one in every two days! In the month of April alone 12 cases of suicides has been reported there. Therefore, laborer’s dignity and means are at stake in many parts of the world, and like economic development social development and social fairness should strike the right chord at the right time.
“The development of China as a world factory is a fundamental reason causing these suicidal cases”, remarked Pun Ngai, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, in the aftermath of spate of suicides that has claimed nine lives so far this year at Foxconn electronic plant near the sprawling city of Shenzhen in southern China. This has surely exposed the dirty linen of China’s factory system, regarding which nine professors of social science wrote an open letter to Foxconn questioning the very sustainability of China’s pivotal position as the workshop of the world. This is not a case in isolation. Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, the largest sports and casual shoe maker in the world, had a rash of four suicides between July and October 2008. ‘China Labor Watch’ has identified more than 80 cases of suicides in Pearl Harbor Delta of China in last 10 years.
Over the last 30 years, China’s internal mobility and consequently their plight has risen manifold with 200 million migrants leaving their home in search of better life. To a large extent, the country dependson these cheap labourers to counterfeit an export-oriented style world factory, which stimulated double digit growth rate for the economy. But in the bargain, basic human rights of these hapless labourers been ignored; they were paid a wage that was below the average of Third World countries; and made it impossible for them to live in cities as they could not encounter the problems of housing, their children’s education and healthcare, and other survival necessitates. The use of cheap labour has been a strategic choice for China in the first period of its reforms — was not without its own weaknesses — as low wage growth depressed the purchasing power and consequently consumer demand that restricted the sustainable growth of the country. This kind of development model, at least today, is bound to repeat Foxconn like tragedies; as unlike their parent’s generation today’s urban laborers cannot return home to be peasants again.
Not only in China, this kind of misfortune takes place even in developed country with strong labour laws like in France as well! In France Telecom, one of the largest companies in telecom sector, 34 employees committed suicide between January 2008 and January 2010, blaming it on stress and desolation at work. France Telecom’s suicide rate is 15.3 per 1,00,000 per year, more than national average of 14.7. The suicide rates of expatriate workers are always high in Gulf States like Bahrain, but the latest figures available for 2008 shows an alarming rise that has goaded a nationwide action to help the endured. Most suicides are by poor labourers — 131 of them have committed suicides in Bahrain alone in 2008 — often because of miserable working conditions and low pay. In Kuwait, the situation is no better, as official rate of suicides by migrant workers is one in every two days! In the month of April alone 12 cases of suicides has been reported there. Therefore, laborer’s dignity and means are at stake in many parts of the world, and like economic development social development and social fairness should strike the right chord at the right time.
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