f*ck foxconn

From http://www.technoid.com.au/2012/03/31/apple-fails-chinese-labor-audit/






An audit of three Foxconn factories by FLA, Fair Labor Association – pumping out coveted Apple gadgets – has found abuses of Chinese labour law, including employees working more than 76 hours a week and more than seven days straight without a required 24-hour break. Along with excessive overtime and not always compensating workers properly for extra hours that were put in, the nearly month-long investigation uncovered health and safety risks and “crucial communication gaps.”

“The Fair Labor Association gave Apple’s largest supplier the equivalent of a full-body scan through 3,000 staff hours investigating three of its factories and surveying more than 35,000 workers,” said the watchdog’s president Auret van Heerden. ”Apple and its supplier Foxconn have agreed to our prescriptions, and we will verify progress and report publicly.”

With 1.2 million workers, Foxconn, an affiliate of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, is by far Apple’s largest and most influential partner. While the audit found multiple violations of labour law at the Foxconn factories, it also found many of the workers would like to work more hours and make more money. Mr van Heerden says this sentiment is typical of migrant workers in China.

“Migrant workers go to find work with a view to make as much money as they can in the shortest time as possible,” Mr van Heerden said. ”So they do push for extra hours, especially overtime hours that are paid at a premium.”

Young, Male, Migrant Workforce

The survey of Foxconn workers revealed the average age of workers building Apple products was 23 and over 60 per cent were male. Less than 6 per cent of workers in the three facilities were between the ages of 16 and 18. Almost all of the workers in Guanlan and Longhua had come from other countries or regions looking for jobs.

But in recent years Foxconn has encouraged workers to move outside the infamous factory dormitories. About 16 per cent of the workers surveyed said the dorms were “very much” crowded while another 19 per cent said “yes, a little”, while 50 per cent said the question was “not applicable”.

The survey revealed that 71 per cent of them do not think the factory canteens serve good food. Nearly 48 per cent disagreed with the premise that the canteens in the factories were clean and hygienic. Most of the workers in the three factories were employed as “operators,” with engineers making up less than 4 per cent of the worker population in the two Shenzhen factories, Guanlan and Longhua.

In Chengdu, nearly 11 per cent of the workers were engineers, according to FLA. A majority of all those surveyed said the compensation does not meet their basic needs. One particular concern to workers was aluminium dust, which had caused an explosion in Foxconn’s Chengdu factory.

Apple Chief Tim Cook Visits

In response to the report, Apple says it has agreed to work with Foxconn to tackle wage and working condition violations at the factories that produce its popular products. Foxconn will hire tens of thousands of new workers, clamp down on illegal overtime, improve safety protocols and upgrade worker housing and other amenities.

Apple announced the moves as the company’s chief executive, Tim Cook, was paying a visit to China. State media said he had met with vice premier Li Keqiang, the man tipped to be country’s next leader, who told him foreign firms should do more to protect workers. Apple and Foxconn are so dominant in the global technology industry that their newly forged accord will likely have a substantial ripple effect across the sector.

The deal may raise costs for other manufacturers who contract with the Taiwanese company, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon.com, Motorola, Nokia and Sony. It could result in higher prices for consumers, though the impact will be limited because labour costs are only a small fraction of the total cost for most high-tech devices.

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