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Reuters, file
Zhang Tingzhen (center) is given a doll to play with by his mother Wei Xiuying while sitting beside his father Zhang Guangde at a Shenzhen hospital in southern China Sept. 26.
HONG KONG - Apple's largest contract manufacturer has been pushing for a Chinese worker left brain-damaged in a factory accident to be removed from hospital in a case that throws a harsh new spotlight on labor rights in China.
Zhang Tingzhen, 26, an employee of Taiwan firm Foxconn, had nearly half his brain surgically removed after surviving an electric shock at a plant in southern China a year ago. He remains in hospital under close observation by doctors, unable to speak or walk properly.
However, Foxconn, which is paying Zhang's hospital bills, has been sending telephone text messages to his family since July, demanding they remove him from hospital and threatening to cut off funding for his treatment -- a move the firm says would be justified under Chinese labor law.
Foxconn confirmed it had sent the messages, saying that under Chinese law the worker must submit himself to a disability assessment, a process that in Zhang's case would require him to be discharged from the Shenzhen hospital and travel the 43 miles to Huizhou, where he was first hired by Foxconn.
As Apple CEO Tim Cook visits China to see factories firsthand, the Fair Labor Association's Auret Van Heerden tells cnbc about the overtime issues and safety risks found at two of Foxconn's factories that produce Apple products.
Risk of brain hemorrhage
The firm said in response to emailed questions that it would be prepared to return Zhang to the Shenzhen hospital after the assessment, though his father said Zhang was unfit to travel and that doctors felt he remained at risk of a brain hemorrhage.
The case has raised fresh questions over the labor record of Foxconn, one of the biggest and most high-profile private employers in China, after a series of well-publicized suicides among its army of around a million workers and recent outbursts of labor unrest.
Report: Riots break out at Foxconn factory in China
It has angered labor activists who say Zhang's plight also highlights China's patchy and sometimes precarious welfare system for workers seriously injured in industrial accidents and point out that there are many workers worse off than Zhang.
"They kept sending me SMSs every day to get my son out of hospital and to appear before an injury assessment body or they will stop paying all expenses, including his medical fees and our living expenses," Zhang's father, Zhang Guangde, said.
"You cannot imagine the suffering they put me through, how I had to fight every inch of the way just to get money so we can take care of our son," he added, speaking at his son's bedside at the Number 2 People's Hospital in Shenzhen.
Zhang was repairing a spotlight on an external wall at a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, when he received an electric shock and fell 12 feet to the ground. He has since undergone five operations, has lost his memory, is incontinent and requires careful, regular monitoring.
Worker at Apple-supplier Foxconn in China: 'We're humans, we're not machines'
Workers who are disabled in workplace accidents and covered by insurance are eligible for compensation payouts, once their disability is assessed and graded by a panel of medical experts. The assessment is done after medical treatment is finished.
Foxconn sent the text messages -- and according to Zhang's father at one point briefly halted payments to the family -- despite a provincial law stipulating that injured workers can remain in treatment for up to two years before they must be assessed for disability compensation.
The company, however, denied that it delayed or stopped payments, saying it paid them on time.
Zhang, whose case was alerted to Reuters by labor activists, has been in hospital since October 2011.
'At the mercy' of system
Doctors at the Number 2 People's Hospital declined to comment for this article, but Zhang's father, 50, said they had not indicated that he could be discharged and had said they needed to keep his son under observation after implanting a tube in his body to drain fluid from his brain cavity to his bladder.
"The doctor told me they needed to monitor his condition and that for such serious injuries, a person was allowed to be treated in hospital for up to two years. After that, assessors can order treatment to be prolonged," the father said.
Labor activists in China say Zhang is just one of many thousands of Chinese workers who are left permanently disabled or chronically ill by workplace accidents, at the mercy of a system that often requires them and their families to fight degrading battles for treatment funding and compensation.
'This American Life' retracts damning report on Apple manufacturer Foxconn
"China now has laws specifying the types of compensation that are due to workers. But in many serious industrial accidents, companies still put workers or their families through a lot of suffering just to get what is due to them," said Choi Suet-wah of the Chinese Working Women Network in Hong Kong.
"They are robbed of their dignity," said Choi, who has extensive experience working with migrant workers in China.
Zhang is actually one of the lucky ones, social workers say, pointing out that Foxconn has at least been paying his hospital bills and the living expenses of his family, which has moved to Shenzhen from central China to be with him.
Worker suicide at Chinese plant of Apple supplier, Foxconn
They estimate that at least four out of 10 Chinese workers are not covered by any kind of insurance and are left to fend for themselves when seriously injured in the workplace -- despite laws requiring all employers to insure their workers.
"This is just one of many, many industrial accidents in China. And you almost certainly never get what you are entitled to, especially in serious cases," Choi said.
Dad: Son calls me 'mother'
Foxconn says it is insured against workplace accidents, which means its insurer would meet the cost of a compensation payment once Zhang's disability is finally assessed.
But compensation in China can vary depending on the city in which a worker's disability is assessed, and this, according to Zhang's family, is why Foxconn wants him to travel to Huizhou and refuses to have him assessed in Shenzhen.
Labor activists say wages and compensation levels are all substantially lower in Huizhou than in Shenzhen, one of the most expensive cities in China.
When asked why Zhang could not be assessed in Shenzhen, Foxconn said the law required him to go to Huizhou because he had signed his employment contract there. It added that it was prepared to send him back to the hospital in Shenzhen if the assessors determined that he required more medical attention.
In hospital, Zhang walks unsteadily, holding on to the bed frames of other patients in his shared room and, with a smile, sits down next to his father whose face tightens with emotion.
"He calls me 'mother' and calls my wife 'father.’ He can only mimic words you ask him to say, it is meaningless," the elder Zhang said later, holding a jar containing large fragments of his son's cranium. Doctors replaced a portion of Zhang's skull with synthetic bone.
He said that despite Foxconn's funding -- a monthly allowance of 11,000 yuan ($1,800) plus treatment costs -- the family had racked up 200,000 yuan ($31,800) in debt to pay for medicines not provided by the hospital and other expenses.
Back home in central Henan province, the family was building a house for Zhang to live in after his impending marriage when he was injured.
"We were building a three-story house," the elder Zhang said. "The project has since been abandoned and all the building materials we bought have been washed away by rain. But these workers still have to be paid. My whole life is over."
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Leave a Comment:
Too bad for him he's not in the U.S. The insurance companies here would treat him so well.
Regardless of politics, I hope the best for Zang Tingzhen. This should be an informative story about a horrible accident. I am sorry that a news posting about a person's horrible injury is really a front for political rhetoric.
Finally someone with a heart. All I've read the in the prior posts is useless political spouting. A human being was injured in a horrible accident; now he and his family endure more injury & insult at the hands of Foxconn. And people here (who most likely consider themselves to be good Christians) add more insults--YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!!
What if this were your child? I have a daughter only 3 years younger than Zang Tingzhen and I can only imagine what his family must be going through. The Chinese people like the American people did not have a choice in where they were born and this family is fighting against immeasurable odds.
We should be sending our thoughts, prayers and well wishes to this young man and his family; after all we share several things in common: we are all human (some here demonstrate less humanity/humility), we all live under the same roof--earth, and we all bleed the same color--red until we're dead.
Guess it's finally time to divest myself of my one Apple product - my Iphone. Instead of an IPAD I purchased a Google Tablet.
Human rights, and worker's rights are important, Apple is the highest net worth company in the world and they can't look out for the workers that have made them ..... that's simply pathetic. Chances are, those same working conditions wouldn't be tolerated in the US. So much for outsourcing our jobs.
I thought that China was the "workers paradise" same as most commie 3rd world trash holes! do not think that the CEO's wouldn't bring the same thing here if they could? capitalist or commie it is all about the MONEY! and who gets it?
And they will begin to do exactly that, rac1, probably before Romeny is even inaugurated. Cases like this will be common-place here under a Romney administration.
All because our insatiable thirst for the latest shiny new toy. Maybe Apple should threaten to pull their contract if Foxconn doesn't stop harassing this guy and his family.
Just about everything made in China....is CHEAPLY MADE!!! From car parts to electronics! You can't even find anything made in the good old "USA" anymore. It might cost more if it is made here....but it is a hell of a lot better than the crap coming over from China. Hell, they can't even make dog food without poisoning/killing our dogs.
Just what do you think is going to happen to workers here when Romeny eliminates the Department of Labor? Of course, he is going to create 12,000,000 jobs - after eliminating the minimum wage, there will be 3, 4 or 5 jobs for every American, and we will need all of them because they will be at $3/hour and have no benefits. But, not to worry, if you get sick or injured, you can just go to the ER.
Best wishes for that man's speedy recovery...
Now, not to sound mean about it: Not to sound mean about it, but if Nobamacare survives the election, that family could always move over here and leech off of the system...
After all, MILLIONS here will be doing that anyway, seeing that unemployment here is just as bad.
GO ROMNEY 2012!!!
Pay attention. This is the global economic world that the corporations want for all of us. This is Ayn Rand's philosophy at its purest and finest. Use the plebian workers until they are no longer capable of providing for your needs, then cast them aside. This is the philosophy of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. Your labor force is not real human beings, it is interchangable parts. If one is broken, you throw it in the trash. This is the true goal of the corporate heirarchy that rules the world. It wishes us to become disposable, silent machine cogs, to be used and abused and discarded. If you want to live in this world, vote Republican.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Walt Kelly (Pogo)
Want someone to blame???
Look in the mirror. You want tons of crap cheap. You don't want the conditions a labor pool that can produce that create, so your jobs are shipped overseas. Submit them to the same criteria you have here and your iPhone is $2,000 bucks. Still care about the poor China factory workers?
The folks that told us to ship manufacturing overseas because we would deal in the more lucrative 'information' industry screwed us. The ramifications have only just begun.
As usual it took all of 30 seconds for this discussion page to turn to nonsense. Bye!
Wow - and people were lined up by the hundreds to buy a new IPhone and support this caring employer.
Ah yes, but we all still keep pluggin away on our computers made by Apple and others made in China.
And this is Mitt Romney's fault or capitalism? Please spare me, this portion of Apple is run by communists with a government run health care system.
and fyi, it was as much or more the Dems as it was the Republicans that sold us into this mess.
Something I find surprising if labor cost are supposed to be so much less is a $1,800 a month expense payment plus medical. When I know for fact US monthly injured workers expense payment, top rate expense payment, in 2006 was and remains at $1,600 for anyone hurt up to 2007, I believe 2007 but can not state as factual, plus medical expense but unheard of family assistance.
There was a change to the top rate of pay that I can only quote as a fact that it was an increase for anyone from that date on, 2007. But that change does not put US payment much farther ahead, actually puts it even, at $1,800, from one source in 2010, but can not quote positively as top rate, but very close if not.
If their payment formula for injured workers is anything like the US formula? That I suspect is with world wide corp-rat insurance companies and so on. Knowing that the current dollar amounts are nearly identical. Then where is this so called cheap labor that they blame our job loss on? Is it all just a lie?
Could our job loss just be because of workers rights and benefits, you know, the human resource part of the working environment, that corporate America wants nothing to do with? Or the rules and regulations that protect resources, people and the environment?
Along with the nearly identical injury income that should be much different given the so called difference in living expense between the two economies. That if their living expenses are so much cheaper than the US living expenses. Then someone receiving $1,800 a month there is living like a king while anyone here would barely make ends meet. If they are unfortunet enough or lucky enough to be all alone and responsible for no one else but themselves and maybe a goldfish, they might make ends meet here! But if everything is so different there how do they justify little to no discrepancy in injury pay most likely arrived at with the same formula based on average earnings?
As for the horror and indignity suffered tring to be treated fairly. They have nothing new on the US system except perhaps our courts may provide protection. Whose hands are tied more often than not by set regulations. They do however help to insure workers rights, as limited as they maybe. The courts judges decide between the company assessors, whose medical diagnosis may be the same as your doctors but always ends with 'return to work' no matter what. The judges are the only thing standing between that paid for decision and the reality of your true degree of injury stated by your doctor and medically reviewed by the judges to project an unbiased medical based decision and insure medical cost coverage.
That would prevent what foxconns insurance carrier is trying to do. To have this man assessed in a lower wage and lower medical cost region. To either assess his degree of injury lower and to have their financial rate of responsibility set within a lower cost region. Then return him and only pay that regional cost leaveing him short of full medical coverage, a travesty of justice and manipulation of the law. That would suggest our job loss in the US all along was not just cheap labor but the corp-rat goal to reduce or limit their responsibility to workers and escape the enviromental regulations. Breaking unions, reducing benefits, discarding workers, polluting the world, and any responsibility to them if as this story suggest hourly wages are similar!
A scam on us and shame on them!
So it looks like Samsung III for me.
Sounds right and it isn't something that just happens in China. When I worked at a nursing home in TX, we had a resident injured at work. She was in a wheel chair, in never never land, and couldn't perform the basic activities of daily living. About every 6 months workmans comp can by and asked if she was ready to go back to work. When we said no they wanted to know when how soon can she get back to work. Every time the Drs said they never even saw the day she could live at home. 6 months later they were back and the Dr would say something like she can't feed herself, how is she going to work? 6 months later...
Cramy....It's a person like you, who makes people like me, more tolerant of people like you.
Any American who continues to buy Apple products, has forfeited the right to call himself/herself an American. You are complicit in this crime against humanity and decency. We have to stop the Jobs and his successors from soiling the American market with products made under these inhuman conditions. Up with the American workers !!!
Yet another reason I don't buy any Apple products.
People should boycott Apple products given the labor conditions prevailing in China.
I boycott Apple products simply because they are WAY overpriced pieces of crap. That's enough for me. Call me a jerk, but I couldn't give two sh!ts about anything that happens to anybody in China. We have enough problems of our own in THIS country. Worry about sh!t here first!
If any of you reading or commenting on this article are buying anything made in China YOU are part of the problem so you need to shut the F up.
While I somewhat agree with you, I have a hard time believing that you purchase NOTHING made in China. It's not always easy to avoid buying products made in China. Made in America really only means assembled here in some cases. Additionally, if you're on a tight household budget, you're only option may be to buy "el cheapo" products made elsewhere.
...
This is why we need the president's plan to rid us of capitalism.
Corporations provide nothing of value while they constantly exploit the people.
.
Obama / Biden in 2012.
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Spoken like a true Socialist. May you rot in Hell, and the demons pee on your corpse.
Romney spent his Vietnam years in France....as a missionary. That's one way to combat communism...disappear into a monastery in the wilds of Paris France.
Yeah, and Clinton didn't inhale, and never had sex with "that woman". And Hussein Obama never served, he was getting high at Occidental College, so your point is?
Sean K.
I actually suspect that Clinton didn't inhale. He never smoked, so he probably didn't know how to inhale. We won't talk about the Monica stuff. That one kind of speaks for itself.