Stressful working conditions at Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen, China, which assembles electronic goods such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad, have been blamed for a string of recent suicides. These suicides expose the existence of an underlying structural problem with production. This problem lies within the context of capitalism and globalization, where governments and capitalists are the main players and workers the sole victims.
One hundred and fifty academics in Taiwan have signed a petition calling on Foxconn, Apple and the Chinese government to take full responsibility for the suicides at the company. It is time this aspect of the current production model is brought to light.
For every iPad that Apple sells, it makes a profit of more than 50 percent, but labor costs account for less than 3 percent of the retail price. With such tight profit margins, plants manufacturing products for companies like Apple are forced to get as much as they can from their workforce and suppress salaries, keeping them as low as possible.
The Chinese government is another key link in the chain of capitalism and globalization. Ever since the implementation of the new Labor Contract Law, China has, in theory, become a better place for workers, with certain rights guaranteed. You now read reports in newspapers of capitalists complaining about how the Chinese government is becoming more demanding about workers’ conditions, making it more difficult to operate a business in China. That being said, there is still a lack of willingness or intention to implement these regulations within the government, to the extent that the law is merely a point of reference.
The point to be emphasized here is that the Chinese government has a vested interest in the capitalist mode of production. It is inconceivable that the government is unaware of the degree to which workers’ rights are being sacrificed.
Nevertheless, it continues to propagate this unfair labor system and relations of production, as the economic and political benefits of so doing are more apparent than either the potential outcomes of the strict implementation of the Labor Contract Law or the scrapping of the household registration or class systems. The law is no more than a showpiece to give the world the impression that China cares about workers’ rights.
Put simply, the Chinese government is exploiting its cheap labor resources to attract foreign investment, which in turn enables domestic industry to absorb new technologies and gain the benefit of foreign experience, to China’s own political and economic advantage. What Foxconn represents is a corporate enterprise exploiting loopholes that the Chinese government allows to exist in the household registration and class systems, in order to propagate capitalism and squeeze out any surplus value to be had.
Apple is an example of a multinational enterprise exploiting the phenomenon of globalization to expand and consolidate their global presence and marketing of their products. The fruits of their success do not trickle down to the worker, who sees none of them in his or her pay.
Furthermore, the worker is impotent in the face of Foxconn’s decision to relocate somewhere wages are even lower, and will perhaps even face unemployment down the line.
And how about the iPhone and iPad that we can’t seem to get enough of? Well, they represent the convergence of greedy capitalists, obliging governments and exploited workers.
Lee Fa-hsien is a post-doctoral fellow in the Graduate Institute of Sociology at National Sun Yat-sen University.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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