All along, Foxconn Technology Group, which has more than one million employees, has been called the "OEM aircraft carrier" by the outside world. The increasing number of employees and revenue has once made the outside world unable to see the "ceiling" of this giant.
However, a recent "shutdown" storm and the "diversion" storm of employees under negotiation have made the deep contradiction between labor and capital within Foxconn more and more prominent; What’s even more worrying is that since Foxconn’s series of "falling buildings" cases occurred in June 2010, the adjustment of Foxconn’s human resources policy is making this OEM aircraft carrier encounter an unprecedented "system crisis".
In mid-2010, Guo Taiming, president of Foxconn, proposed to double the salary of employees. In the past three years, the basic salary of employees has almost achieved this goal, but the problem is that ordinary employees’ previous invisible benefits such as food and shelter have also been calculated into their wages; In addition, many newly promulgated human resources policies are invalidating Foxconn’s management incentive policies, which in turn leads to the loss of excellent managers and skilled production line workers, and the "manufacturing level" of OEM aircraft carriers is frequently hidden.
Employee centrifugation
Although the basic salary rises again and again, the monthly income of Foxconn Shenzhen general workers has basically not changed. The "salary increase" that seems extremely encouraging outside is "hidden" inside Foxconn.
Recently, about 200 day-shift employees took part in the "shutdown" in Foxconn Shenzhen Longhua Science and Technology Park. These employees walked from the 3rd floor of Building D4 in the working area of CCPBG (hereinafter referred to as "CP" in Foxconn) to the trade union headquarters, shouting slogans and demanding a pay increase.
"Wage increase" is the unanimous demand of "shutdown" employees. An employee involved revealed that Foxconn gave a 20% salary increase to the technical staff in a certain department of the factory, while the salaries of the staff in the surrounding departments and production departments were not adjusted at all, which directly triggered the incident.
CP is mainly responsible for the production of game consoles within Foxconn, and products such as Microsoft Xbox come from this business group. In recent years, because of the "great pressure" of cost control, the wages of employees in this business group are not high, and problems such as illegal employment of child labor have been exposed by the media.
In addition to the "salary increase" storm, CP employees’ year-end performance awards in 2012 were only distributed in half in mid-2013, which failed to fulfill the promises at that time and aggravated employees’ dissatisfaction with the company.
At the same time, in the face of weak global economic demand, CP’s control over employees’ overtime hours has led to a decrease in employees’ income, which has also become a deep incentive.
Before November 2010, the average monthly basic salary of an ordinary production line worker in Shenzhen Foxconn Longhua Science and Technology Park (hereinafter referred to as "general worker") was 1,200 yuan, and he worked overtime for 80-90 hours every month, earning nearly 3,000 yuan.
In order to alleviate the contradiction between labor and capital in Foxconn, Guo Taiming, chairman and president of Foxconn Group, drastically raised the average monthly basic salary of general workers in Shenzhen to 2,000 yuan, but the average monthly overtime hours dropped to 60 hours, and the employees’ income remained basically unchanged. In 2012, the monthly basic salary of Foxconn Shenzhen general workers was adjusted to 2100 yuan again, but the average monthly overtime hours dropped to about 48 hours again.
That is to say, although the basic salary rises again and again, the monthly income of Foxconn Shenzhen general workers has basically not changed, and the "salary increase" that seems extremely encouraging outside has been "concealed" inside Foxconn. Because of the "falling" incident of a series of employees in the first half of that year, Dai Zhengwu, the "second person" of Foxconn Technology Group, was appointed as the chief human resource officer of the group. The first new human resources policy is that employees used to pay about 240 yuan every month and manage about 110 yuan every month, which was also formally included in employees’ monthly salary as part of their salary.
Such a human resource policy directly led to the decrease of Foxconn general workers’ loyalty to the company. The "diversion" of employees of Qunkang Technology, which is still under negotiation, is directly proved by the fact that many employees demand to be dismissed by the company instead of "leaving themselves".
The so-called "diversion" refers to Foxconn’s internal adjustment of surplus manpower to the production lines of business groups with strong demand for orders and insufficient manpower according to the different order abundance levels of production lines of various business groups, so as to effectively improve management efficiency. "Self-separation" means that Foxconn employees are dissatisfied with the company’s treatment or policies and take the initiative to leave, and Foxconn does not have to pay liquidated damages.
According to the data, Qunkang Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. was established in 2004, which belongs to Foxconn’s Innolux Optoelectronic Business Group. Innolux specializes in the production of various panels.
From May to early June 2013, the Shenzhen factory of Qunkang Technology was completely shut down. According to Foxconn insiders who did not want to be named, at least 3,000 to 4,000 people were affected by the "diversion". Foxconn spokesman Liu Kun responded that the incident is currently being resolved: "There are 736 employees of Qunkang Technology who have been diverted to other business groups; Among them, 4 people returned to work in Henan factory, and 190 people went to Ningbo voluntarily. There are still 3,456 people to be diverted in the factory. "
It is these 3,456 employees who are to be "diverted" who have taken the initiative to ask Foxconn for "dismissal".
The so-called "requirement of being dismissed" means that these ordinary workers are unwilling to "leave themselves", but hope that Foxconn will take the initiative to lay off employees and get compensation from Foxconn.
"Qunkang Technology is a very special business group." The above-mentioned person who didn’t want to be named told the reporter of China Business News, "The employees of this business group have a good stability, and generally have a long service life. 75% of the employees have a service life of 3 to 5 years, and some even have a service life of 15 years. Under such circumstances, if Foxconn voluntarily terminates the contract, it will have to provide employees with n+1 months of resignation compensation. This is obviously not a small number. "
Because it has long been aware of this problem, the company started the human resources communication meeting early before the diversion. As of August 1, these communication meetings reached more than 60 games.
Foxconn promised that it is the bottom line for the company not to lay off employees. Parks such as Shenzhen and Henan have entered the peak season of orders, and employees who are willing to move to Foxconn’s Shenzhen Outer Park, regardless of management or general workers, have different amounts of resettlement fees; And Foxconn encourages employees to return home and go to Foxconn Henan, Nanning, Sichuan, Wuhan and other parks for employment; Employees who are willing to stay in other business groups in Shenzhen Park are treated as "high or low" …
Deep problem
The emergence of the salary problem is not only related to Foxconn’s "meager profit" era in the foundry industry, but also related to the adjustment of Foxconn’s human resources policy in the second half of 2010.
"This shows that Foxconn has indeed had deep-seated problems." The above-mentioned insiders said that Foxconn employees have lost hope for the future, both mentally and materially, and lack the driving force to continue to develop together with the company, especially the management employees.
In the eyes of the above-mentioned people, the diversion communication meeting of Qunkang Technology is well prepared, but there are two reasons behind the requirement that employees are still willing to be "voluntarily resigned": First, they hope to get compensation and find another job. As mature small panel production line workers, it is not difficult for these employees of Qunkang Technology to find a better job; The other is Foxconn’s increasingly uncompetitive salary system.
The emergence of the salary problem is not only related to Foxconn’s "meager profit" era in the foundry industry, but also related to the adjustment of Foxconn’s human resources policy in the second half of 2010.
As mentioned above, after Dai Zhengwu became the chief human resources officer of Foxconn for the second time, he implemented a series of "new policies" on human resources in Foxconn Group, which had a profound impact on Foxconn’s development.
For example, the first move of Dai’s human resources reform was to cancel the annual "general adjustment". The so-called general adjustment means that within Foxconn, employees are systematically guaranteed to be promoted every year compared with the previous year. Obviously, in the expanding period of increasing business, this is not only conducive to the stability of employees, but also allows employees to share the fruits of the company’s growth moderately, thus ensuring the efficiency and quality of production line work.
Of course, the general tune is not a "big pot" in the full sense. Employees with excellent performance may get a salary increase of 10%, and those with poor performance may only get a salary increase of 0.5%, but on the whole, the average annual increase of about 4% ~ 6% ensures the steady expansion of Foxconn’s employee scale and business.
However, after the cancellation of the "general adjustment", even the most symbolic 0.5% is gone, and many Foxconn general workers no longer pay attention to the continuous working hours at Foxconn.
Another cost saved by Foxconn is the cancellation of management allowance. As a management cadre, the lack of material incentives is the direct result of Foxconn’s decline in production line management, including the "rework" of 5 million to 8 million iPhone in early March.
Similarly, the expenses of general workers’ original food and shelter have also been added to the new basic salary of employees in disguise. "It is said that 800 yuan will rise, but in fact, after deducting the cost of food and accommodation, it will rise by more than 400 yuan. This is not a pure salary increase, which is opposed by internal management and criticized by the outside world." The above-mentioned insiders said.
In addition, in Foxconn’s new human resources policy, the widening of the "wage set distance" has also caused the strange phenomenon of "promotion and salary retention" to appear frequently.
The so-called "salary range" refers to the salary range of Foxconn employees at the same level. Because before Dai took office, the management supervisor enjoyed the management allowance, so the salary set distance between different levels was not large. In April 2011, Dai re-established the first salary range without management allowance, and the span was greatly widened. Take the fifth division (head of a class) as an example. Before the implementation of the New Deal, the salary range of employees at this level was 5,800 ~ 10,700 yuan per month, of which the average monthly salary of core technicians was 7,000 ~ 8,000 yuan, and the average monthly salary of ordinary cadres was about 6,000 yuan. Correspondingly, the minimum salary of the ninth division (assistant) was only 10,400 yuan/month.
This means that an employee may be promoted from the fifth grade to the ninth grade, as long as the salary is above the lower limit of the ninth grade, there will be no salary increase. Sadly, it takes at least 8 years for Foxconn to go from division 5 to division 9. "The insider said.
It is exactly the same as the design idea of the above-mentioned human resources reform. In order to prevent "middle-ranking cadres" (commonly known as mainland cadres within Foxconn) from being promoted too quickly, after the implementation of the new human resources policy, the original posts at the same level were set to two levels, and all the posts of "senior" were added.
For example, the "manager" level cadres are high-level positions within Foxconn, from specialized manager, assistant manager, assistant manager to vice president, which is the old setting; However, after the reform, the special manager, assistant manager and assistant manager have become special managers and senior special managers, assistant managers and senior assistant managers, assistant managers and senior assistant managers respectively. In this way, it may only take nine years for the middle-level cadres to be promoted from specialized managers to associate managers, but now it needs to be doubled at most.
As of press time, our reporter has not yet received an official response from Foxconn on the above issues.
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