Source: http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=119010
The incomplete proletarianization A vision of China
from Foxconn
suicides
Pun Ngai
Journal
Transversal Intervention in Forum on Globalization and Social Development, organized by the Centre for Policy Studies and International Economics, May 14, 2010, China University of Political Science and Law
I want to address the issue based on the video we just saw. There are now eight (not seven) dead in the Foxconn. The professor of Qinghua University said that the suicide rate did not seem very high. The next day a 24 year old was thrown from the top of a building. Personally I think these events are dramatic and it is important know what criteria should be evaluated and what's that for a not very high rate of suicides. The mainstream media talk about these tragic events as if it were a personal matter: the suicide of a young graduate who seemed open and happy person is presented as a spiritual problem, while others of these suicides are attributed to psychological problems . In the case of a worker who was thrown from the roof of the dormitory, was attributed to psychological pressures resulting from fertility problems. After the seventh suicide in Foxconn is known sought from psychologists, who have done a good job, and recently also has been told with Taoist priests. The direction of Foxconn prefer to see the problem as something connected to the Fengshui and psychology, rather than seeing it as a management problem enpresarial or as a social problem. I, on the contrary, I will address the problem from a sociological standpoint.
From these facts I want to interpret the phenomenon of farmers migrating from the countryside to the factories in the process of forming a new working class. My books are about the first generation of migrant farm workers, I've recently written some articles scattered on the second generation, which try to insert into the Marxist theoretical framework in formation of the proletariat, and also includes some post-Marxist theories, in order to assess whether it is possible to interpret the suicides and strikes as protest events under the Marxist theoretical tradition or sociology.
Obviously, we do not believe that suicide is normal, if that were the practice of Korean workers who set fire should be seen only as a warning to society, and the suicides of young Chinese workers is a tragedy too great to think that just about, after all, one way to tell the company suffered unfair treatment. Today will avoid all the details about the deaths, and we have seen in the video. The suicides that occurred from January to now occur in young people between 18 and 24, and his approach has always been the same: throw from the top of a building, a gesture that does not allow back. Two workers have been injured and not dead. But whether wounded or dead, how to understand this tragedy? Do you have to place it in the context of the company or have to put the company's internal problems in the broader context of the 230 million migrant farm workers? And why? "To say that this company has done better than this, that the salary of such an enterprise is greater than this one? In
Shenzsen the prevailing wage of a worker is between 1,000 and 1,500 yuan, while Foxconn is between 1,500 and 2,000, being thus significantly higher. Working conditions and management are a little better and that is why at Foxconn every morning at 5.30 h. there is a queue of people wanting to go to work there, while smaller companies are struggling to find workers. Considering this, we could say that this is a smaller-scale representation of the common situation of migrant farm workers, if they improve working conditions at Foxconn could improve the living conditions of migrant farm workers.
Secret por el que China se ha convertido en la fábrica del mundo reside en la existencia de 230 millones de trabajadores campesinos migrantes, sin los que China no habría llegado a ocupar en los últimos 20 años, gracias al bajo coste, el primer puesto como fábrica del mundo. Hoy tenemos primacía en varios ámbitos, la exportación por ejemplo. Foxconn es la primera exportadora global en electrónica. Hoy, cuando construimos Shenzhen, Shanghai etc., decimos siempre que estamos en los primeros puestos a escala mundial, pero también deberíamos decir que, según creo, también lo estamos en cuanto a la tasa de suicidios de la fuerza de trabajo juvenil, pese a los psicólogos que nos dicen que la tasa no es elevada.
When we analyzed the formation of the working class in the context of China as world factory, we see clearly who is building wealth, who is building China as world's factory, who sacrifices himself, who appropriates the benefits. Today it has clearly rethought the phenomenon of class society. A socialist country, that's why it should get rid of capitalist production relations, has allowed the class division to penetrate deep into social relationships.
I became a Marxist when, for the first time I entered the Chinese industrial zones, the first time I walked into a factory, while still college student in the early nineties. At that time they were producing large economic changes in Hong Kong and many factories moved to mainland China. Hong Kong's workers suffer unemployment, and when I moved to China observed the phenomenon of migrant farm workers who, year after year, they went to Guangdong to work.
These changes impressed me and was shocked to see that in the homeland of socialism allowed a brutal capitalist exploitation, which in the nineties, was even more intense than today.
In 1995 I entered a factory which produced electronic components for mobile phones then. There, I began to ask many people what their salary. It was an electronics factory, which became cell phones then. The price of one of those phones were around 10,000 yuan. And what was the salary of a worker? What day? On average, 14 hours a day, no Saturdays or Sundays.
Maybe your mothers and your fathers are the first generation of migrant farm workers that we interviewed, this situation is remembered well. When I entered the factory, angry read Marx's Capital and discovered that the situation described was not as serious as it was in China in the nineties. The salary of the speaker's Capital is calculated weekly, but when I started collecting the wage work was delayed three months and the pace of work was grueling. In the early nineties, workers died in fires that occurred in the factories and dormitories. After Marx, Capital, which describes the industrial situation of the nineteenth century, influenced the socialist revolution, if we compare the time of Marx to the situation of workers and the suicides of Foxconn, we come to the mind that perhaps that time was happier than ours.
In the early nineties, the pressure Labour was much stronger, the wage was only 500 yuan, where it is now between 1,000 and 1,500. The bedrooms and factory spaces have improved, and improved working conditions. Why, then, there were no suicides and strikes among the first generation of migrant workers campesiones, which does happen now?
When I entered the factory and saw the horrendous working conditions did not understand how something could happen in our socialist country. I was furious, but the workers were not. I thought it depended on who were gripped under pressure, which had no possibility to express their feelings. However, I saw no suicides. There were sudden deaths or exhaustion, but not with the current severity.
In the nineties saw how the workers began to get angry and even to strike. After 2000 in the Pearl River Delta, particularly in Dongguan, there were waves of strikes in which thousands of people, but without any media coverage. Then, some media were interested in the strikes, but stopped because it had become so common, especially in Dongguan, which did not attract attention by being so many and so frequent.
How to interpret the differences between the two generations of workers? We must reflect about it and, above all, wonder how they came about migrant farm workers. In addition we study in depth the differences between these two generations, even with the same class composition, with the same relations of production and in the case of workers doing the same job at the factory and they face the contradictions of capitalism. This must be done because the difference is really big.
must also reflect on the formation of the new class of migrant farm workers, we can not fit completely in the process of proletarianization. During a renovation that lasted 30 years the farmer has become worker (in poor without rights), the subject of work but not a worker in the full sense. It is unclear if it is a farmer or a laborer. Although he lives condiones are objectively of a worker, from a subjective point of view, while worker identity is problematic.
Consider the problem of identity recognition through some theoretical content of the post-Marxism. In the transition from class to class itself for itself difficult and complex factors involved. If we introduce this aspect in particular Chinese conditions and in the process of inclusion in the global capitalist economy, by making a comparison with other countries are that the uniqueness China lies in our migrant farm workers. Despite evidence that can spend ten or twenty years of his life working in the factory, are denied their position as workers. His consciousness as such subject has not yet fully formed.
in China Are we witnessing the emergence of a new Enclosures [nt: end of the communal lands in favor of landlords in England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries]? But this phenomenon is different in China. The new generation of migrant farm workers can no longer return to his people but he can not stay in the city. You can not stay where it is, but can not return to the field. Should not such After looking at the condition of incomplete working class the reasons for the suicides and protests by migrant farm workers?
The phenomenon of migrant farm workers can not separate development from the past 30 years. It all started with the reform and the reform started in the field, which was destroyed collective dimension encouraging the emergence of small rural economies, the base of the workforce I have been referring to is at the end of collectivism, which resulted to a surplus of rural labor force. Our Sociologists use a beautiful expression for this phenomenon: an abundant labor force. No matter
whether it is heavy or is widely available, what matters is that a younger generation has nothing to do in the field, has no opportunity to work there because the land can not provide employment. So they began to migrate looking for work in the city, particularly in coastal areas where foreign capital came. So China was founded as a factory of the world, thanks to this cheap labor. In the agricultural reform and the "open strategy" is the secret of the emergence of migrant farm workers.
These are the conditions of the country, because "the labor force is too large. If this surplus labor en los años 80 no hubiera sido absorbida en las fábricas de “sangre y sudor” tampoco se habrían tenido estas mínimas ocasiones de progreso. Según lo que aprendí entonces, en aquel tiempo con doscientos o trescientos yuanes mensuales se pagaban más de diez horas de trabajo diario.
Ya fuese una empresa de juguetes o una de electrónica, el producto era el mismo tanto si lo hacía una trabajadora de Hong Kong o yo misma, que trabajaba en Shenzhen, también eran iguales el capital y la marca. Por ejemplo, todo el mundo sabe que los productos Disney son muy caros, por un muñeco piden entre 200 y 300 yuanes. Bien, pues en los años 80, la misma fábrica, el mismo contexto, en Hong Kong will earn between 5,000 and 6,000 yuan, and the beginning of the 90 some 6,000 working overtime, but the same factory opened a new location beyond the border with Shenzhen, which is producing the same product but pay yuan monthly salary of 200/300. This difference
it was difficult to understand and accept, while for those with patriotic sense was understandable, since both companies said they were in a different stage of development, there were plenty of labor and use that workforce price could boost development, integrating China into the global capitalist system and allowing the first step. But I had no patriotic sense, I wondered if the capital of Hong Kong or Taiwan would no longer invest because the wage paid to go up to 400 yuan. Then as now the question is whether a wage increase that China would cease to be the world's factory and stay away from the path of development. For these capitalists
rising wages did not produce any advantage, because they see the workforce as people. The employer does not feel like people needed to consider the cheap labor. Therefore, for them it would be pointless for a raise. When I entered the factory, had no confidence in workers. When walking down the street or when we went to eat always listened decir que los trabajadores chinos eran difíciles de manejar y que, muy en particular, tendían a robar mercancías ¿Es así? Ciertamente, en comparación con los trabajadores de Hong Kong y Taiwán el fenómeno del hurto de mercancías es más habitual. Los almacenes de las fábricas de Hong Kong tienen abiertas las ventanas, mientras que las de Shenzhen tienen barrotes de hierro por temor a los robos. Un trabajador de Foxconn se ha suicidado por haber perdido el prototipo del iPod; esta presión proviene del temor de la empresas a los robos. Pero si pensamos sobre ello, es preciso tomar en consideración la diferencia que había, en la fábrica en la que trabajaba, entre los salarios, unos 400/500 yuanes mensuales, and the price of cell phones we produced, to 10,000 yuan each.
I've noticed that many fear to use concepts such as class exploitation, but simply walk into a factory to farm, dignity and words no longer seem like alien concepts or in the service of some theory to manipulate foreign workers. The object of that class holding the anger that every worker can feel and express, are things that from a historical perspective, we talked quietly in college students and teachers. Currently there are fears the emergence of class antagonisms. A few years ago had more plants lacking the minimum decent conditions for workers. Places where they worked and lived lacked emergency exits. Some workers were burned to death for that reason. The factories of the nineties had the track history on the ground floor, the assembly line was on the second and third floors, while the workers lived on the upper floors. To prevent all thefts are closed and locked, and in case of fire it was impossible to escape and die workers burned. My work "Chinese Workers", situated in the eighties and early nineties, is born because at that time as a college student, I saw death and to workers. After those fires, housing areas and production were separated by appropriate legislation. Therefore, the accommodation of a factory which has a thousand workers should be created now in its surroundings.
In recent years I have written several articles on the subject of housing. If the first feature in which the secret factory of the world are migrant farm workers, the second is represented by the bedrooms linked to the factory. It is appropriate for the context of the life of the workforce because of the possibility of forming a family, as they must think that, in addition to a salary, require accommodation, the possibility of raising children can study or visit the doctor when it contracts a disease. But the reward of 230 million migrant farm workers is governed only by the needs of the factory and forced to live in common lodging, where dozens of workers huddle. The pay is not allowed to live in the city of Shenzhen.
In fact, in the coastal area of \u200b\u200bShenzhen is developing plans to use this work force for only a short period, until the migrants return to the countryside, are seen as a labor force, not workers. The problem is becoming more evident. At first, migrant farm workers who were in the factories had their own piece of land and the possibility of returning to his village That explains why I was angry but they still did not. In the nineties the workers were considered, basically, peasants, albeit from a Marxist point of view its relations of production had changed and had become real workers employed in factories, but are not yet in a position completely comparable to the workers, their salary was not a worker's salary because the salary of a worker must ensure the cost of reproduction of successive generations, that is, to have a family, working eight or ten hours, able to have a in which to live with the family and from the back to work after a day of rest.
Si en los años ochenta el salario no permitía vivir en la ciudad, actualmente el salario en Foxconn, entre 1.500 y 2.000 yuanes, tampoco permite que un obrero viva en Shenzhen. ¿Cómo puede reproducirse este sistema, cómo se tiene en pie este tipo de sostenibilidad?
Digamos claramente que este sistema sólo rige para los trabajadores campesinos migrantes, cuyo salario es la mitad del salario de un trabajador normal. Además, viviendo en el alojamiento de la fábrica se puede ahorrar algo de dinero para el futuro, ya que no es seguro que Foxconn siga aceptando a un trabajador cuando supere los 30 años de edad.
El actual desarrollo de las grandes ciudades se apoya completamente sobre los hombros de la fuerza de trabajo campesina. La ciudad es cada vez más rica, construimos ciudades cada vez más globales, como Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, cuyos gobiernos no tienen ninguna obligación respecto a las pensiones y al cuidado de los 230 millones de trabajadores campesinos migrantes. Tras haber explotado a la fuerza de trabajo, carecen de cualquier proyecto para su reproducción y para los cuidados que necesitan. El proyecto es devolverles al campo, arruinado desde hace veinte años, sin desarrollo alguno y sobre el que, además, pende la amenaza inminente de la venta de la tierra. Ésta es la injusticia fundamental, la fuerza de trabajo barata sostiene una producción de bajo coste que no sólo se dirige a urban middle bourgeoisie but, more important still, to Western countries like USA, where he has no money it borrows to consume and consume what is our cheap labor. The Chinese government has continuously provided money to those who can consume goods made with cheap labor in the global economic system, so that the ultimate sacrifice falls on the mass of migrant farm workers.
What is the difference between the two generations of migrant farm workers? The first generation had great endurance, in fact, the psychologist who has appeared in the video said that the problem of the current protests derived from the second generation is weak, no stamina, but we must ask how it has created this psychological difference. A careful analysis will tell us that while the first generation had more strength to endure the hard work and adversity, he also had hopes and goals, which saved was used to build a house and an honorable family life, enabling them to withstand the anguish and the toil of work in cities. The second generation is fully formed in the urban environment and aspires to a metropolitan lifestyle in recent years created by the dominant development model, a kind of urban civility continuously sought in la que se dice que hay que renunciar al campo porque de otra manera uno se desacredita, se pierde el honor, se es poco desarrollado y se pierde la posibilidad de cambiar lo que tus progenitores te dieron en su momento. Éste es el contexto en boga. La vía de desarrollo hoy imperante y su cultura nos hacen ver al campo y a nuestro pasado como si fuesen nuestros enemigos.
Desde el momento en el que nos pusimos a construir civilidad metropolitana del tipo de la de Beijing o la de Shanghai, los valores de la nueva generación están enteramente basados sobre eso, mientras que los de nuestros progenitores se basaban totalmente sobre el campo. La primera generación, aunque pobre y forzada a un duro trabajo, tenía una casa en la que pensar. Customers now have between 18 and 20 have no reason to feel connected to the field and yes many reasons for conflict. Year after year struggle for higher wages, although wages are apparently three times in the early 90's, the truth is that prices rise. Do they earn 1,500 yuan today are actually more than 500 of yesterday? May be less, given the inflation and rising prices. In the nineties, on the outskirts of Shenzhen and Guangzhou could rent for 200 or 300 yuan, a house to live with the family. Today you can not. Migrant farm workers are forced to live in industrial areas, where rents are not affordable so staying in the dorms of the company, the same bedroom from the rooftops and windows were thrown Foxconn workers.
A migrant farm workers in their twenties who do not want to stay in the country and want to live in the city should pay at least 1,000 yuan to rent, but, then, is how to meet other basic needs at a salary of 1,500 yuan? No output to the dilemmas and difficulties of this new generation. Two or three years ago there was much talk when snow forced farmers to become migrant workers in the city without returning home for Chinese New Year celebration, but even could have done would have been only for two weeks, they were aware. Rural life, values \u200b\u200band reality are lost, even more so if we talk about the second and third generation.
From here, we can imagine two possible ways. On the one hand, it would be a new rural development that does not involve the sale of land and is not serving the big companies that are devouring the countryside. A development that allows people to return there to have an economic base from which to live and feel that life has a future.
On the other hand there is the possibility that these migrant farm workers truly become the new working class, with a salary increase which will be beneficial for the development of China. Now if all goods are export oriented, is that people here do not have money to eat. On the one hand, there is fear that there is no consumption, but wages do not rise. It is not logical. Raising wages at Foxconn are also influence on other companies and the entire area of \u200b\u200bShenzhen, leading improvements.
The real problem is the appalling race to the bottom in which is embedded capital internally, the last frontier of reduced competition, whose final price paid by workers. Why
workers have been reduced to this condition? Let's face it: in addition the fact that our trade unions play no useful role, our workers have no power to negotiate wages. They have no force in the city because they are still in a fluctuating situation and uprooted. Today we work in Dongguan, Shenzhen tomorrow or maybe in Guangzhou. This does not belong to a household or a society.
The strength of workers, the pressure they can exert on the capital, is fragmented under these conditions. Capital wants all workers are migrant farm workers, and clearly wants to keep migrant workers as second and third generation migrant farmworkers. That's why we have not changed the situation created by the hukou system [nt regulatory system permits permanent and temporary residence].
Increased wages also influence the situation of students. Why is the salary of a diploma is so low? Because there behind a brother who is even less, a migrant worker who has even less, an unemployed person who has even less. Today we should think about who holds a society and what rights are protected.
Pun Ngai is a sociologist and anthropologist, professor at the Polytechnic of Hong Kong.
Chinese to Italian translation: Diego Gullotta
Translation from Italian to Castilian: Trasversales, con autorización de Diego Gullota.
Fuente: http://www.trasversales.net/t20ngai.htm (Revista Trasversales número 20 otoño 2010)
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