After years of letting Foxconn practically rule its employees and the areas that it has its factories, there are signs that the top communist authorities have had enough of the outfit's antics.

A top communist official of Guangdong province called for companies to improve conditions for workers after a spate of suicides by employees of the outfit. Wang Yang, provincial party secretary, made a high-level statement about the spate of worker deaths at Taiwan-based Foxconn. Ten workers have jumped to their deaths this year, and three more have been injured in suicide attempts.

Wang, who also sits on the party's 25-member ruling Politburo, said party and government organizations and  Foxconn must take effective measures to prevent similar tragedies from happening again. Foxconn recently increased wages for its factory workers in China by an average of 20 per cent.

But Wang's comments illustrate authorities' concern over the potential public fallout from the suicides, which have been the subject of intense discussion on the Internet and in the media.