Nine suicides highlight the suffering of migrant workers


The rapid development of Foxconn has become a legend. It has been No. 1 on the list of top 200 mainland exporters for seven consecutive years, and in 2009, it climbed to the 109th spot in the Fortune 500. However, in the first half of this year, nine of its employees chose to end their young lives by jumping from buildings, which forces us to explore the heavy price behind the legend.

This price apparently wasn't paid by management but by Chinese workers, or more accurately, Chinese migrant workers, whose images were on the cover of Time Magazine at the beginning of this year.

Although tragedies like Foxconn aren't common in China, the company isn't the only enterprise profiting from the labor intensive industry. "Made in China" is the pride of our nation, and moreover, it's a miracle created by the sacrifice of Chinese migrants.

These workers immigrate among different provinces to build cities and roads and contribute to the soaring GDP. They use their strength to fight the invincible global turmoil to allow China to survive to become the hope of a global economic recovery.

But without this kind of extreme incidents, ordinary people will pay little attention to those who work far away from home, earn meager salaries and do the toughest jobs. These young migrants also have communication desires in modern society, but they lack the support network of relatives, friends, entertainment and continued education. What could they do to ease their psychological pressures?

In 2007, Shenzhen General Labor Union dispatched people to establish a labor union for the company. However, the union did almost nothing for its workers during the nine tragedies. More important, should the government do more to stop the company's serious violation of workers' rights, even if the company is a major contributor to Shenzhen's revenue?