Australia: Sydney Foxconn workers expose sweatshop conditions

Ignored by the media, governments and the trade unions for years, workers at a fully casualised sweatshop in Sydney’s western suburbs this week spoke out against the Depression-style conditions imposed by their employer, computer assembling firm Foxteq.

At the factory in the suburb of Rydalmere, the 200 workers only find out the night before if they are required for work at 6.30 a.m. the next day. They are forced to work any day of the week, including weekends, and constantly pitted against each other, with those on the fastest assembly lines offered work the next day.

The company is a subsidiary of Taiwanese-owned Foxconn, the world’s largest outsourcer for the production of electronic goods for major international corporations such as Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Dell and Nokia. The company’s oppressive work regime in China, where the vast majority of its 900,000-plus employees are between the ages of 16 and 24, provoked widespread anger in China and internationally earlier this year after at least 13 suicide attempts by young Foxconn workers.

Foxteq workers in Sydney who spoke to the WSWS this week, following an initial report in the Sydney Morning Herald, revealed that their conditions were similar. They explained that the entire workforce was made up of casual employees engaged by a labour hire company, Westaff, even though some of the workers had been employed in the factory for more than 10 years.

Every night, the workers wait for text messages, which can arrive as late as 8p.m., to see whether they will have work the following day. Each morning, they are called to a meeting to be told how many hours they will be working that day, which may be for just four hours—barely enough to cover their travel costs. Workers have been threatened with dismissal if they are ever unavailable for a shift, even when sick or injured. On the job, they are under constant pressure to meet quotas. If they complain about any aspect of their conditions, they will never work at Foxteq again.

“There is no guarantee of work, no assurance whatsoever,” one young worker told a WSWS team. “If you speak up about anything, there is no more work tomorrow. The company treats us like robots. We have to carry weights of up to 60 kilograms, or be sent home.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/foxt-n13.shtml


Unions seek action on Depression-era packers

The computer giant Hewlett-Packard is under pressure to review its contract with the packing company Foxteq amid claims of exploitative employment practices and revelations that Foxteq is the sister company of the infamous iPhone manufacturer Foxconn.

As more workers from Foxteq's Rydalmere, NSW factory spoke out about their experiences in the completely casualised workplace, unions asked why Hewlett-Packard had not already investigated the matter.

A number of the company's customers which receive computers packed by Foxteq - including IBM, News Limited and Paperlinx - said they would investigate the matter or raise it with HP senior management....Workers at Foxteq Australia blew the whistle on the operation on Monday. They described Depression-era employment conditions where staff await text messages telling them whether there is work for them the next day.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/unions-seek-action-on-depressionera-packers-20101109-17m2e.html

You think the conditions in Australia are bad? What's being described is standard operating procedure for a kind and caring company in China. And I'm not saying that to excuse the behaviour. I don't think left wingers are being vigilante enough in terms of intimidation. Time to get thousands of people outside the factory to shut it down, dig?