- Workers gathered and made traditional Chinese funeral offerings yesterday at Foxconn headquarters in China after a series of suicides and suicide attempts. Protesters say the company, which makes Apple’s iPad, has unhealthy working conditions.
- Members of the Fishermen Cooperative Society in coastal Pakistan gathered yesterday to protest recent police actions against villagers protesting the occupation of an ancient graveyard.
- On Monday off the Louisiana coast, seven Greenpeace members boarded an offshore drilling support ship and painted anti-drilling messages in oil on the side of the ship. They have since been arrested and charged with unauthorized entry.
- Thousands of people marched in Switzerland on Monday to protest the building of nuclear power stations in the country.
- Members of the group Manchester Plane Stupid chained themselves to the wheels of a plane on Monday to protest the expansion of the World Freight Centre at Manchester Airport, which they say will be an environmental disaster.
- The Kayapo indigenous group in Brazil continues their month-long blockade of an Amazon highway to protest the building of a dam they say will destroy their communities and livelihoods.
Even though all suicides are tragic, the actual suicide rate for Foxconn employees is less than the rate for all 50 states in the U.S.. Keep in mind the company has over 300k employees. Businessinsider wrote a good blog entry on this yesterday.
That is interesting and certainly something to consider–although I think the point of this particular post was to highlight how workers organized in the face of unhealthy conditions, and whenever there is a rash of suicides it’s important to ask questions. It was also interesting because we so often forget to ask where our things come from, and this event was about the people behind our iPads.