总机构在工作场所的尊严富士康打工者的经验的研究.docx

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Workplace Dignity in a Total Institution: Examining the Experiences of Foxconn’s Migrant Workforce

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本科毕业论文外文翻译

外文译文题目（中文） ：
总机构在工作场所的尊严:富士康打工者的经验的研究

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Workplace Dignity in a Total Institution: Examining the Experiences of Foxconn’s Migrant Workforce

Kristen Lucas • Dongjing Kang • Zhou Li

Received: 17 October 2011 / Accepted: 17 April 2012 / Published online: 6 May 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract
In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its total institution structure imposed unique indignities on its workers that both raised questions of their self-respect and selfworth, as well as gave rise to multiple episodes of disrespectful communication. We interpret our findings in light of the larger cultural context and meanings of work in China to understand more fully the experience of dignity of Foxconn’s migrant workforce.
Keywords：Communication Labor relations Migrant workers Organizational culture Total institution Workplace dignity IntIntroduction Foxconn Technology Group—the Taiwanese multinational company that produces approximately 40 % of the world’s electronics items—employs an army of workers currently estimated at 1.2 million (Duhigg and Barboza 2012). Its largest factory compound, dubbed ‘‘Foxconn City,’’ alone employs more than 300,000 people. This densely populated industrial complex in Shenzen, China, is the place where many young migrant workers not only earn their paycheck, but also is where they eat (at company dining halls), sleep (in company dormitories), and play (in company-provided recreational facilities). For more than a dozen of these young people, Foxconn City also is the place where they ended their lives. Within a period of fewer than 8 months during 2010, 14 Foxconn employees committed suicide, 4 more made failed suicide attempts, and 20 additional attempts were thwarted by company officials (SACOM 2010). Making this suicide cluster even more dramatic, the victims—all young migrant workers in their teens and 20s—ended their lives by jumping from the windows of buildings at Foxconn City. The suicide cluster generated an international media frenzy and created a major communication crisis for Foxconn. Journalists, labor activists, and concerned consumercitizens around the globe demanded answers. Whatever the explanation proffered for the suicides— from the harsh working conditions at Foxconn to the psychological vulnerability of the largely migrant workforce— a central theme that ran through the criticisms time and again was the denial of workers’ dignity. A friend of one of the suicide victims reported to the press that the victim, as punishment for breaking some equipment, was taken off the production line and assigned to clean toilets. ‘‘He was very upset.He told me that cleaning lavatories gave himno dignity and made him lose face. Sometimes he was given no gloves but he had to clean the lavatories all the same’’ (Jones 2010). The Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM 2010) group conducted a 4-month, undercover investigation of Foxconn’s organizational culture and concluded that ‘‘Profit maximisation is the ultimate corporate principle, under which workers’ dignity and well-being are of no concern’’ (p. 2). Likewise, a group of Chinese sociologists issued a report that expounded upon the problems of migrant work and appealed to the government to end polices that allow Foxconn and Foxconnlike manufacturers to prey upon the vulnerable. They described working conditions that characterized Foxconn as a ‘‘life without dignity.’’ They continued, ‘‘From the tragedies at Foxconn, we can hear the loud cries for life from the second generation of migrant workers, warning society to reconsider this development model that has sacrificed people’s fundamental dignity’’ (Yuan et al. 2010). Management scholars Ling et al. (2011) made several appeals to dignity when they critiqued the Foxconn tragedy through a corporate social responsibility lens, finding that workers’ ‘‘right[s] and dignity are not being preserved but rather invaded by the company’’ (p. 14). Accompanying the accusations was concern on the part of Foxconn’s global business partners. Apple, one of Foxconn’s largest customers, was particularly embroiled in the tragedy as the plants where the suicides occurred produce high-profile Apple products, including iPod music players and iPhone mobile phones. Prior to the suicides, Apple’s (2010) Supplier Code of Conduct espoused the importance of dignity: ‘‘Suppliers must uphold the human rights of workers, and treat them with dignity and respect as understood by the international community’’ (p. 1). Following the suicides, Apple reiterated this belief, issuing a statement saying, ‘‘Apple is deeply committed to ensuring that conditions throughout our supply chain are safe and workers are treated with respect and dignity’’ (Ogg 2010). Even Foxconn was concerned with issues of worker dignity. At a news conference responding to the suicides and accusations of sweatshop-like conditions, Foxconn spokesperson Louis Woo remarked, ‘‘There is a fine line between productivity and regimentation and inhumane treatment. I hope we treat our workers with dignity and respect’’ (Barboza 2010). Further, in conjunction with a raise in employee wages, Foxconn CEO Terry Guo issued a statement saying, ‘‘This wage increase has been instituted to safeguard the dignity of workers, accelerate economic transformation, support Foxconn’s long-term objective of continued evolution from a manufacturing leader to a technology leader and to rally the best of our workforce’’ (Culpan 2010). In its annual corporate social responsibilityreport, Foxconn (2010) described its efforts in response to the suicides as being made to ‘‘promote lifestyle diversity and employee respect, an atmosphere of trust, and personal dignity’’ (p. 1).1 Clearly workplace dignity is a central concern—for workers, scholars and activists, global business partners, and Foxconn leaders. But a chief problem in assessing workplace dignity is that it is an elusive and ambiguous term that, while appealed to as an ultimate value, rarely is defined with precision (Lee 2008; Sayer 2007). Furthermore, evaluating dignity becomes vastly more complex in cross-cultural contexts (Lee 2008). Perhaps this complexity is one reason why in Apple’s public account of its independent audit of Foxconn facilities, the word dignity was conspicuously absent save for the opening statement that reasserted the company’s commitment to worker dignity (Apple 2011). While Apple reported interviewing workers about job stressors and psychological health, workers’ personal accounts of dignity or lack thereof remains largely silenced. Given the gravity of the Foxconn suicide cluster, worker dignity must be taken more seriously. The point of this essay is not to assign blame for the suicides to Foxconn, nor is it to offer a detailed critique of Apple’s response to the crisis. While these organizations certainly will be implicated in our analysis—and we would hope that they could draw lessons for more dignified approaches to managing the workforce and/or managing supply chain responsibilities—our main goal is to take seriously appeals to worker dignity. We do so by performing an analysis of worker dignity at Foxconn, particularly in light of the all-encompassing ‘‘total institution’’ (Goffman 1961) structure that characterizes the organization. To begin, we review relevant scholarship on workplace dignity, highlighting culturally embedded understandings of dignity. Next, we define total institutions and describe how they can serve to create a structure in which indignities are naturalized. We then detail recent changes to the meanings of work in China to provide a backdrop against which we sensitize our account of worker dignity at Foxconn. Workplace Dignity Dignity is an ultimate value that has long been called upon—both explicitly and implicitly—to understand the conditions of work and labor (Bolton 2007; Sayer 2007). For instance, the International Labour Organization (1974) positions dignity as a fundamental human right, asserting in its constitution that ‘‘all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-being and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal opportunity.’’ However, it has proved difficult to judge how dignity is being practiced, as it is a concept that lacks a precise definition (Lee 2008; Sayer 2007). To complicate matters further, understandings and enactment of human dignity vary dramatically across cultures. In this section, we outline basic definitions and theoretical considerations, highlighting key differences in conceptions of dignity in Asian and Western contexts. Hodson (2001) defines dignity as ‘‘the ability to establish a sense of self-worth and self-respect and to appreciate the respect of others’’ (p. 3). Lee (2008) offers a similar definition: ‘‘the state of being treated with respect or honor, with a sense of self-worthiness and self-esteem resulting therefrom’’ (p. 5). Because work consumes such a large proportion of people’s lives, the achievement of dignity at work becomes essential for overall self-worth (see also Bolton 2007). But achieving this sense of dignity is not easy. Sayer (2007) explains the fundamental contradictions in achieving a full sense of dignity at work. Citing a Kantian perspective, he explains that a necessary condition of dignity is being ‘‘treated as an end in oneself, at least in part, and not merely as a means to someone else’s ends, or as substitutable for someone else’’ (Sayer 2007, p. 568). But because people are indeed hired to fulfill an instrumental role (i.e., as a means to an end), the achievement of dignity becomes inherently problematic in employment relationships. Therefore, the employment relationship always will be rife with potential indignities. Words, deeds, and material conditions all impact the achievement of dignity (Sayer 2007). Several recent studies have demonstrated how individuals’ dignity has been jeopardized in various workplace contexts. For example, Steimel (2010) shows how pink-collar workers’ dignity was threatened when these women in subordinated service roles experienced abusive communication and outright questions of their competence from bosses and clients. What these studies demonstrate is that there are multiple ways in which employees can be made vulnerable to both micro-level interaction and larger organizational structures. Perhaps it would more accurate, however, to argue that employees are made vulnerable to the subjective effects of undignified workplace interactions precisely because of the objective and material constraints of the organizational structure in which they are embedded. In fact, Brennan and Lo (2007) express concern over the way that dignitydiminishing practices can be built into social institutions and structures. These include mismanagement and abuse, overwork, incursions on autonomy, and contradictions of employee involvement. While Hodson’s (2001) framework is the most robust theorizing on workplace dignity to date, it is important to point out that his typology is based on more than 100 English-language worksite ethnographies—almost all of which were situated in Western Europe or North America. Consequently, current theorizing has a decidedly Western bent. However, dignity still has an important place in Asian cultures, albeit a culturally specific version of dignity (Lee 2008). Several authors have begun to tease out the differences between Western and Eastern conceptions of dignity, which reveal a more fragile and contingent view of dignity. See Table 1 for a summary. First, in Asian contexts, dignity is determined by evaluations made by others. Kim and Cohen (2010) explain that in Asian face cultures, an individual’s worth is defined primarily by what others think of him or her. Therefore, one’s performance, value, and success or failure are judged by others. Kim and Cohen put it succinctly: ‘‘In a Face culture, my worth is social worth, and my estimate of myself must align with the worth that others would recognize in me’’ (pp. 537–538). In the words of Brennan and Lo (2007), dignity ‘‘is at the disposal of others, to give or take away from us’’ (p. 43; see also Lee 2008). In contrast, in Western dignity cultures, an individual’s worth is not defined by and dependent upon others, but instead points to the more contingent and other-dependent nature of achieving dignity in face cultures. Second, individuals in Asian contexts have relational duties to others to conduct themselves with dignity. Basing her argument in a legal framework on dignity as a pillar of universal human rights, Lee (2008) provides a detailed account of the ways in which notions of dignity are influenced by religious, cultural, and political commitments. Writing about Asian cultures that have communitarian characteristics, she says, ‘‘the underlying consensus in these societies is often one emphasizing relation rather than individuality, duties as much as rights’’ (p. 14). One of these duties is viewing dignity as a moral practice regulating people’s relations with others. Another core duty is to uphold personal honor and moral obligations such that the dignity of an individual can carry forward to the family and community to which he or she belongs. Lee (2008) sums up this approach by saying, ‘‘When personal integrity, family honor and social respect are all part of the formula, human dignity is as social as it is individual’’ (p. 32). Third, based on Confucian teachings, dignity in Asian contexts is hierarchical and meritocratic. Brennan and Lo (2007) provide a point of contrast for Western and Eastern views of dignity. They argue that based on the Confucian canon of self-cultivation, individuals strive to develop character traits worthy of honor—in essence, creating a d