10th Suicide Rocks Chinese Company

Posted on May 27, 2010

AP / Kin Cheung

Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou stands in front of a screen Wednesday showing names of workers who sought help in the health care center at the company’s complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Wednesday.

Although Terry Gou, chairman of the Taiwan-based electronics maker Foxconn, visited the suicide-plagued branch of his company in Shenzhen, China, on Wednesday in an attempt to get to the root of the ongoing tragedy, answers aren’t coming fast enough to stop more deaths from happening. According to China’s Xinhua news agency, a 10th factory worker apparently killed himself that same day. In addition, another employee at the plant was reported to have cut his wrists on Thursday but lived after receiving medical care.

Engadget has more background on the Foxconn suicides, including an undercover story by a young reporter who infiltrated the Shenzhen plant, here.  —KA

BBC:

Police officials said the man who died on Wednesday was a 23-year-old from Gansu province who had been working at the plant for about a year.

Witnesses said he had jumped from the seventh floor of a dormitory building, Xinhua reported.

The death came just hours after the chairman of Foxconn, Terry Gou, one of Taiwan’s most famous businessmen, took reporters around the vast Shenzhen plant.

Mr Gou apologised repeatedly, and said he had trouble sleeping but would not stop trying to solve the problem.

“We need some time,” he said. “But we are confident. We are extremely determined.”

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