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.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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