Another Jumps! Are Foxconn Employees Committing Suicide For Money?
Just hours after Terry Gou, the 59-year-old chairman and founder of Foxconn said he could not know when the next suicide would occur at one of his factories, a 23-year-old man jumped to his death. At 11.20pm last night, a worker from Gansu province surnamed He became the 10th suicide victim at Foxconns Longhua plant this year. He jumped on the same day that Mr Gou took the unprecedented step of opening up the factory to the media and promising that his company was doing everything it could to stop the rash of suicides.
Foxconn finds itself in the position of continuing to pay 110,000 yuan (11,000) in compensation to every person who jumps. For a depressed Foxconn employee, who still feels an obligation to repay his family for the cost of his or her upbringing and who would like to give his parents a lump sum that could transform their lives, this is a very tempting sum. For a worker on the basic rate of 900 yuan a month, the compensation amounts to the equivalent of over ten years of gross salary. For a worker who is doing overtime and earning 1500 yuan a month, the compensation is still worth six years of salary.
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