Caged Life: The Living Condition of Foxconn’s Workers
1. Iron bars sealing off windows and balconies in the factories and workers’ quarters.
2. No where to escape when fire breaks out.
3. 200 people living in a common room, every where is full of stinky smell.
4. Workers are not allowed to bring friends and family members to their quarters.
5. Male and female workers are not allowed to visit each other inside the quarters.
6. No one is allowed to talk to each other inside the factory or at the quarters.
7. No one is allowed to use any electric appliances over 200 w.
8. Must carry the worker’s ID batch anytime. Security guards check the batches every time any worker goes in and goes out. If anyone is found walking around without carrying the ID batch, they may be surrounded by a group of security guards who beat them down.
9. Cooking is not allowed inside the quarters.
10. Washing clothes are not allowed inside the quarters.
11. Curfew on quarters 24 x 7 x 365. Close surveillance and monitoring on workers 24 X 7 X 365 inside the factories and at the quarters.
12. Quarters are frequently out of electricity and hot water supply.
All of these rules are enacted as strategies to ‘improve’ work safety standards; to ‘prevent suicides’ ; to ‘enhance’ productivity by fusing all arenas of a worker’s private life with his/her laboring life to deliver maximum productivity.
Workers live like industrial breed caged animals-injected with unknown hormones-their only lifestyle is: sleep, eat and labor.
Source: Ngai, P; Chan, J and Mark Selden. (2015). Dying for an iPhone: The Hidden Struggle of Chinese Workers. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Chapter 6 and 9
