Three Foxconn (富士康) workers have committed suicide at a factory in China in the past three weeks, a labor rights group said on Saturday.
All three jumped to their deaths at a plant in the central city of Zhengzhou run by the Taiwanese electronics giant.
LATEST DEATHS
A 30-year-old married man killed himself on Tuesday following the similar deaths of a 23-year-old woman on April 27 and a 24-year-old man three days earlier, media reports said.
“The reasons for these building jumpings are unclear,” the New York-based China Labor Watch rights group said in a statement.
Foxconn, which assembles products for Apple Inc, Sony Corp and Nokia Oyj, has come under the spotlight after suicides and labor unrest at its Chinese plants since 2010.
TOUGH CONDITIONS
In 2010, at least 13 Foxconn employees in China died in apparent suicides, which activists blamed on tough working conditions, prompting calls for better treatment of staff.
Although Foxconn denied the accusations, it raised wages by nearly 70 percent at its Chinese plants in 2010.
It has also taken steps such as improving working conditions and enforcing age restrictions to address concerns raised by an independent audit of conditions mandated by Apple.
Foxconn is the world’s largest maker of computer components and employs up to 1.1 million workers in China.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
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