After suicides, scrutiny of China's grim factories

The factory's first death this year came on Jan. 23. The body of a 19-year-old worker named Ma Xiangqian was found in front of his high-rise dormitory at 4:30 a.m. Police investigators concluded that he had leapt from a high floor, and they ruled it a suicide. His family, including his 22-year-old sister who worked at the same company, Foxconn Technology, said he hated the job he had held only since November–an 11-hour overnight shift, seven nights a week, forging plastic and metal into electronics parts amid fumes and dust. Or at least that was Mr. Ma's job until, after a run-in with his supervisor, he was demoted in December to cleaning toilets. Mr. Ma's pay stub shows that he worked 286 hours in the month before he died, including 112 hours of overtime, about three times the legal limit. For all of that, even with extra pay for overtime, he earned the equivalent of $1 an hour.