From Financial Times:
When Terry Gou opened a factory in Longhua, a town north of Shenzhen in southern China in 1988, he was ahead of most other electronics companies.
Longhua was an expanse of hills and paddy fields when the founder and chairman of Hon Hai, a Taiwanese computer parts producer, set up shop there. The low wages and land prices allowed Mr Gou to make computers and handsets for the world’s technology brands more cheaply and efficiently than his competitors.
Like many other low-cost manufacturers in China, Hon Hai or Foxconn, the trade name the group goes by, took charge not just of its workers’ labour but their entire lives. Migrant workers are housed and fed on campus.
See also “Hon Hai Chairman Defends Treatment of Workers” from the Wall Street Journal.