The recent suicides of 12 employees at Foxconn factories in Longhua, Guangdong Province have shocked people in Taiwan and China and attracted a lot of global attention.
Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) has demonstrated his desire to resolve the issue by coming up with a series of remedies, including a 22 percent pay raise for workers. Senior government officials such as Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) have called on the departments involved to help Gou get things under control.
Because of the division of labor in the global high-tech industry supply chain, most contractors at the bottom of the chain have been forced to move their operations to China to cut costs. Unfortunately wages in China have been rising lately, so much so that when Western companies upstream try to get discounts from companies in China, a process that can sometimes amounts to little more than extortion, contractors lose their profits and the whole situation becomes a vicious circle.
Companies receiving these orders accept labor-intensive jobs that come with delivery terms in order to keep their businesses viable. This also means that employees in these factories have to work overtime, and because their work mostly consists of repetitive tasks on assembly lines, younger employees with lower stress thresholds become easily bored and exhausted. It is precisely this sort of work environment that has seen suicides become a recurring theme.
The “Three D’s” refer to the “dull” work, “dangerous” low-paid jobs and the “dirty” environments low-paid workers are expected to endure. The occupational safety and quality of life of employees would be greatly enhanced if robots could do these repetitive jobs. Robots could work 24-hours a day, which would provide young people with both the opportunities and time to take part in more creative work, which in the long-run would help enhance overall social cohesion.
In January 2007, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, wrote an article for the Scientific American in which he suggested that robots could become the next computer industry and that their application could eventually be seen in every household. He also encouraged the development of robot software platforms. The research and development lab established by Walt Disney Company and Carnegie Mellon University applies intelligent robot technology to the service sector, including areas such as medicine and home care for the aged and those with disabilities. This area of application is becoming more common worldwide.
Taiwan is very competitive in terms of information and communications technology, integrated circuit design, chip production and computer components, and is therefore well-positioned to develop its own intelligent robot industry. This is a direction we should most definitely explore given labor shortages due a declining birthrate and aging population, the huge demands of newly emerging countries and increased domestic demand. Robots are the most logical way to replace workers engaged in low-paid labor-intensive and dangerous jobs.
Taiwan’s intelligent robot industry is still growing and if we can dedicate more resources, increase the development of key technologies and optimize the conditions needed to develop the industry, while strengthening the quality of available technical training available, we will come out ahead. Establishing a firm foundation for the industry’s development would help it become the next trillion dollar sector for Taiwan while also allowing it to gain a major stake in the international market.
Ren Luo is a professor of electrical engineering at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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