Technology giant Foxconn has been under scrutiny for the last four years after a series of suicides questioned on the company’s working conditions. Addressing the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, Foxconn Technology Group’s CEO, Terry Gou, rejected the reports that reasoned the company’s poor and unsatisfied working for workers’ suicide attempts.
Gou said that the company cannot be blamed for any of the suicides. He further claimed that while monotonous work could be the reason behind some of the suicides, personal relationships or family disputes could be blamed for 90 per cent of the deaths.
Foxconn’s CEO added that as many of the company’s workers were between 20 and 25 in age, unmarried and away from their families, breakup with a lover could frustrate them the most as they had no near or dear ones to talk to, thus ending up losing their lives.
According to a labor watchdog group, over a dozen of Foxconn workers committed suicides in 2010. Following this Foxconn was put under heavy scrutiny over the working conditions at its China manufacturing campuses, where products for Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Nintendo and others are assembled. The Chinese government had sent 230 officials to the facilities for more than two weeks to investigate the deaths.
Gou further asserted that the company’s factories had some of the best working conditions in the country when the suicide incidents took place, even best than at least 95 percent of China’s factories.
