Guolaosi: Chinese for "Worked to Death"

In China, death from overwork is so common, there's a word for it: guolaosi. But despite the fact that guolaosi kills over 600,000 Chinese workers a year, working conditions in China are improving. And consumers in the West can help prevent guolaosi deaths by demanding fairly-produced goods from China.

Yan Li's family knows the meaning of guolaosi far too well. Li worked for a Foxconn factory in Southern China where he helped assemble components for iPads, Playstations, and mobile phones. He stood on the assembly line in one place, making the same tiny motion with his wrist all day. Sometimes, according to his family, his shifts would last for 24 hours. Sometimes up to 35 hours at a time. Li had no trade union, no group to represent his interests, and if he had tried to form one he'd probably have been imprisoned or killed. This went on until one day 27-year-old, otherwise healthy Li finished a particularly long shift and dropped dead.

Gualoisi is not uncommon in China. In fact, China Daily estimates that up to 600,000 workers a year die from overwork. That figure includes many workers like Li who are young and have no serious health problems before starting brutally strenuous jobs. It also includes workers who commit suicide to escape abusive work environments, which incidentally, happened to another worker at Li's factory the same night he died. These deaths occur at factories that make things all of us have in our home and use daily — cell phones, computers, car parts, etc. The factory where Li died might have made the computer I'm writing this story on, on the one you're using to read it.

But the situation in China is not so bleak these days. Wages in China are increasing, overall. Trade unions and collective bargaining, while not exactly allowed yet, are at least not being utterly destroyed by the government and military. Workers are rising up without being beaten back down and are finally taking a small piece of what is owed to them. And now they need your help. They need you to make it known to the companies you buy from that you don't want a guolaosi-made cell phone or laptop. They need you to push for supply chain transparency, to support companies who support workers, and to make a statement about your beliefs with the products you buy. Look at the back of your computer, and then write a letter to the company that made it asking them what they are doing to prevent more people like Li from dying to make their products.

Because Yan Li shouldn't have had to die for my computer. Or yours.

Photo credit: scobliezer