A factory with 12 lives

A cat will die after losing its 9 lives. How many lives does a factory have?

2010, Foxconn's factory in Shenzhen, China, witnessed 12 of its employees jumping off their high-rise dormitory buildings to finish their lives.

Foxconn, aka Hon Hai, is a Taiwanese-owned group having some 800,000 employees. It is owned by a Taiwanese tycoon Gou Tai-Ming (郭台銘). The group operates several manufacturing factories in China, being suppliers for international customers like Apple.


Troubled by accuses of its abusive employment practices, Foxconn is still a popular employer among young workers in South China. It has higher pay rates than most of its counterparts and provides after-hour work opportunities for those who want extra money. They have clean dormitories, canteens, etc. In fact, the living area of the factory is like a community.


Except people barely know each other. They have no time to socialize. People working in Foxconn complain about they have no chance to even speak to their roommates, who may work on different shifts. No such things as clubs or associations among workers in Foxconn exists.


The suicide cases in Foxconn shocked China. Gou believed there was such curse to doom his factory. He was about to invite some Buddhist monks to prey for the factory, before more cases followed up. The executive board of Foxconn then implemented other measures to stop more people from suicide, such as opening hotlines to solve physiological pressures of its employers, delivering physiological lectures, etc. And then more cases happened.

26 May 2010, Gou went to the factory himself and delivered a speech to the workers. He apologized for everything happened in his factory and promised no one will be forced to work extra hours.


Less than 12 hours after the speech, a young man jumped off and died in Foxconn.