He jumped to his death.
That was his surname, according to press reports, He.
He was 23 years old. He was single. He was from Gansu, one of China's poorest provinces.
He came to Shenzhen a year ago to work at Foxconn Technology Group, perhaps for a taste of China's booming city life and maybe $130 a month.
He lined up with hundreds of others just like him for a job at the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer.
Foxconn is part of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.
It assembles iPods, Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)computers, Sony (SNY) and Nintendo videogames, Nokia mobile phones, and other gadgets that people who are born in more fortunate parts of the world will curse at when they don't work properly, and discard when the next greatest thing comes along.
Gizmo getters never have to think about He, who reportedly jumped from a balcony of a plant dormitory last week.
He was at least the 10th employee at the Shenzhen plant to do so this year.
Two others also reportedly tried to take their own lives, sustaining severe injuries, according to news reports. Foxconn also confirmed the death of an 11th employee at another plant on Wednesday, but it denied labor activist accusations that the death was due to assembly line exhaustion.
Put all these deaths together in one news story and it is practically an epidemic.
But factory work has always been exhausting, bleak and dehumanizing. Why can't the people who work so hard to keep our prices so low just sing along with Tennessee Ernie Ford: "Saint Peter don't you call me "cause I can't go; I owe my soul to the company store."
I, for one, am not going to feel guilty for cranking my iPod or flipping through my Amazon Kindle (AMZN). Cheap Chinese labor is how I roll. This blood isn't on my button-pushing fingers. Or is it?
Terry Gou, the billionaire chairman of Foxconn, has told reporters he can't sleep at night.
He's erected safety nets around his buildings to catch jumpers. He's hired an army of counselors. He's established a buddy system for workers to check on each others' emotional health. He's even handing out 30% raises. So now his peeps get $170 a month instead of just $130.
Gou also should consider changing his company's name to something other than Foxconn, a name that suggests a sly enterprise pulling a fast one.
Apple Inc. (AAPL), Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Nintendo Co. have said they are investigating claims that Foxconn is guarding a henhouse full of young, easy-to-exploit migrant workers.
Critics complain that these workers are wooed from rural towns, housed in a corporate compounds, driven at breakneck speeds by militaristic managers, isolated from their families, and given less care and respect than robots, because, well, robots cost money.
At the All Things Digital conference in the southern California on Tuesday, Apple's Steve Jobs said he finds these claims "troubling," but he also added that Foxconn is "not a sweatshop."
"You go in this place and it's a factory but, my gosh, they've got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it's pretty nice."
Nothing like a dip in the pool after 12 hours of anxiety and abuse from brutish factory overlords, which seems to be the primary complaint. But Jobs just sold his 2 millionth iPad and needs to keep cranking out more.
Gou has suggested that maybe Foxconn's suicide rate is normal. The company employs more than 400,000 people in Shenzhen. The annual suicide rate in China is 13 per 100,000. So there you have it. Fatal bouts of mental illness are inevitable. Why all the fuss?
There's also another theory about the payout a suicide victim's family receives--$14,500--being an attractive economic incentive for those making $130 a month to take the plunge.
If that's true, think of the sacrifice these people have made for their families. And if it's not true, think of the sacrifice these people have made for your Sony PlayStation.
For Foxconn, the story is running away like a Toyota (TM).
No matter how one grinds the numbers, or explains the trend, it's unusual, so many workers all jumping to their deaths in so short a time.
He jumped just hours after Gou promised workers a better life, and then took busloads of reporters on a tour of the Shenzhen plant.
We will never know why He did this.
He can only make us wonder how long China can keep churning out our cheap electronic goods at such a pace.
Al's Emporium, written by Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. The column is published each Tuesday and Thursday at 9 a.m. ET. He can be reached at 212-416-2617 or by email at al.lewis@dowjones.com, or on his blog at tellittoal.com.
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