US labor group offers helping hand to Foxconn workers (China)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-07/22/content_11034988.htm



GUANGZHOU - A San Francisco-based labor council wants to help its counterparts in Guangdong province press IT giant Apple for more profits to its scandal-hit Chinese manufacturer, to improve the treatment of Chinese workers, a senior trade union officer has said.

Apple Inc is a major brand customer of Foxconn Technology Group, which employs more than 800,000 people on the Chinese mainland, mostly in Guangdong.

The latest offer came after a dozen Foxconn workers committed suicide by jumping off buildings in the company's premises in the first six months of this year.

The latest suspected suicide occurred at the Taiwan's LCD maker Chimei Innolux Corp, an affiliate of Foxconn, on Tuesday.

A 19-year-old intern from the Dongfang Vocational School of Technology in Hebei province died on Tuesday morning after he fell from his sixth floor dormitory at the plant in Foshan of Guangdong, Chimei said in a statement on Wednesday.

Police are still investigating the case, it said.

Companies like Apple should bear more responsibility for such suicides than the manufacturers, Chen Weiguang, chairman of Guangzhou's trade unions federation, quoted the San Francisco labor council as saying.

FULL story at link.