The history of company towns in the United States featured many labor battles fought over intertwined issues of wages and living conditions. So it was in Pullman, Ill., where in 1894 a strike broke out over wage cuts–and high rents at company-owned housing.
Such incidents out of the American past shed light on last week’s riot at the Foxconn campus in China–and suggest a shrewd move that China-based companies (and China’s government) might pursue to lessen labor strife in the future. To read more, see my just-posted piece on Bloomberg Echoes: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-03/foxconn-riot-shows-why-company-towns-often-grow-violent.html