“Working As Chinese Workers in Brazil”: Working Conditions and Institutional Context in the Experience of a Foxconn Factory in Brazil

This article has the aim to describe the impact that Foxconn’s investments in Brazil have had in relation to labour laws and trade union models, by identifying as a case study the most important factory of a Taiwanese Group in the country.

Foxconn’s localisation in Brazil, together with the ones of other Chinese companies, especially belonging to the electronic sector, has been mainly driven by the economic growth, affecting Brazil since the early 2000s. The first Foxconn plant in Brazil has been established in Manaus’s Special Economic Zone in 2005. After Manaus Foxconn have invested in other 3 factories, Jundiai, Indaiatuba (San Paulo) and Santa Rita (Minas Gerais).

It should be noted that Brazil has a legislative framework on labour protection regulation that ensures greater protection for the worker and above all the possibility of easier access to legal protection against company violations in the regional labour courts, with a very broad legal support, provided also by trade union. In this sense, the Brazilian experience on this topic shows that a major part of work conflicts is directly transferred to the labour courts. At the same time, the legislation allows the existence of a single trade union belonging to a specific professional category on a municipal basis; this means that it is possible negotiate with an enterprise even without members in that specific firm, and regardless of the workers’ will or mandate.

The article aims to analyse the working conditions in Brazilian factories of Foxconn. Particular attention will be paid to work organization models, labour management, and labour force composition in the plant of Jundiai (San Paolo). The research field have place in Brazil in different years starting from 2015 and then 2017, 2019 and more recently. Have been conducted with about 25 qualitative interviews to workers and union leaders.