Corporate Watch

Foxconn's long hours causing workers' deaths

 China Daily February 3 2015 Foxconn, among some other companies in China, allegedly forced their employees work to overtime, which resulted in occasional karoshi (death caused by overwork or job-related exhaustion) and suicide, an official with the All China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU) said on Monday, Beijing News reported. Guo Jun, secretary of ACFTU's secretariat, made the remarks during a press conference in Beijing on Monday. According to Guo, employees in these enterprises work for more than 10 hours everyday and rarely have days off. Some privately owned, or middle- and small-sized enterprises don't offer paid leave to workers. These illegal long hours lead to various psychological issues among their employees, which sometimes cause karoshi and suicide. Foxconn, a major supplier of components to Apple, has been in the news in recent years after a series of suicides by workers, which activists blamed on tough and high-pressure working conditions. Lack of investigations and light punishment are reasons behind the illegal overtime, Guo said, adding that many companies even learn from Foxconn how to make more profits.

Firm suspected of using child labor

Shenzhen Daily A TECHNOLOGY company in Shenzhen is suspected of using child laborers who were forced to work 12 hours a day and paid 2,000 yuan (US$328) a month, the Southern Metropolis Daily has reported. The Shenzhen Click Technology Co. factory is located in an industrial park in Fuyong in Bao’an District, and produces batteries and magnetic components. A Daily reporter contacted labor authorities Friday after chatting with some children who said they were primary school students and worked at the factory. The newspaper said factory administrators had illegally hired 69 children -- 12 or 13 years old and from Liangshan, Sichuan Province -- a

Apple’s labour rights monitor finds little progress at Foxconn

30.12.2013  After three years of engagement at three Foxconn factories in China, the FLA has released its third and final verification assessment. Despite big promises to deliver labour rights improvements, the Fair Labor Association (FLA), tasked by Apple to remedy rights violations at its supplier Foxconn, has achieved little. While the assessment points to some reforms – health and safety improvements and reduction of the working week (although not to the level of complying with Chinese law) – there has been little if any progress on key issues of wages and back pay. FLA had promised that compensation would increase sufficiently to offset any reduction in overtime hours and that workers would receive compensation for the vast amounts of unpaid overtime they had already done. In addition, a study would be done to determine the amount of compensation necessary to provide for the basic needs of workers. Yet this third and final assessment report does not mention any of these promises.

Apple And The Labor Process

Source: http://media.lclark.edu/content/hart-landsberg/2012/07/19/apple-and-the-labor-process/

Give Apple workers a voice in their future

Give Apple workers a voice in their future By joining the Fair Labor Association, Apple has embarked on its latest program of auditing its suppliers, ostensibly to investigate and remedy the appalling abuses in its supply chain that have been well documented and widely reported. While Apple claims that it is finally taking the issue seriously, its top-down auditing approach can never be a long-term solution to the systematic violations of labour rights that are occurring every day in the manufacture of electronic products. Indeed, Apple promised in 2006 that auditing would protect the rights of workers in its global supply chain, with results that are all too apparent.

Chinese Employees Angry About Lack Of Benefits From Philips

April 12, 2010 http://www.chinatechnews.com/2010/04/12/11875-chinese-employees-angry-about-lack-of-benefits-from-philips More than ten people, all of whom were reported to be former employees of Philips, gathered outside Philips' Beijing office last week to demand that the company pay full social insurance contributions.

An investigation of dispatch Labour system in China

An investigation of dispatch Labour system in China
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