Child Labor
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Samsung cuts ties with factory following child labor findings
Samsung has announced that it has suspended dealings with one of its manufacturing partners after an activist organization found "serious and persistent" labor violations at a facility in China. China Labor Watch investigated Dongyang Shinyang Electronics and found multiple instances where at least three underage girls were hired to work 12-hour shifts making parts for Samsung's phones. The report also alleges more widespread issues at the factory, including a lack of safety training or equipment, refusing to hire male workers and forcing employees to work up to 120 hours of overtime -- more than three times the legal limit.
Nintendo investigating manufacturer Foxconn after child labor admission
Foxconn, the massive Chinese manufacturing firm that puts together, among many other things, the iPhone and Nintendo hardware like the Wii U, admitted to employing workers under the age of 16. The company released a statement confessing that "Our investigation has shown that the interns in question, who ranged in age from 14 to 16, had worked in that campus for approximately three weeks," in violation of Chinese labor law.In response, Nintendo issued its own statement. "Nintendo is in communication with Foxconn and is investigating the matter. We take our responsibilities as a global company very seriously and are committed to an ethical policy on sourcing, manufacture and labor."Any child labor would also be in violation of Nintendo's own "Corporate Social Responsibility Procurement Guidelines," as part of which Nintendo conducts regular on-site inspections of companies it works with."If we were to find that any of our production partners did not meet our guidelines, we would require them to modify their practices according to Nintendo's policy," Nintendo said in its statement.
Foxconn admits child labor laws breached by use of underage interns
Foxconn has admitted that it employed underage interns in breach of China's child labor laws. An internal investigation at its Yantai factory found some of the young trainees were aged 14- and 15-years old (16 being the legal minimum). In a statement received by CNET, the company advised that "this is not only a violation of China's labor law, it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions." This comes as a further blow to the firm's employment record, after recent riots breaking out and strikes over iPhone 5 quality standards. These interns were sent to the facility from schools, with Foxconn carrying out full investigations with the relevant educational bodies to try to work out how this was allowed to happen. The tech manufacturer has been keen to accept responsibility for its part in the situation, advising strong action will be taken against any full-time members of staff found to have played a part in the breach.
Apple supplier audit reveals sub-minimum wage pay and records of underage labor
Apple's famous desire for total control over its operations seems to have extended to its manufacturing facilities as we've come across Cupertino's Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report, which details audits the American company has done of its overseas suppliers and the failures identified therein. The findings are pretty damning on the whole, with more than half (54 percent) of all factories failing to meet Apple's already inflated maximum 60-hour work week, 24 percent paying less than the minimum wage, 37 percent failing to respect anti-discrimination rules, and three facilities holding records of employing a total of eleven 15-year olds (who were over the legal age of 16 or had left by the time of the audit). Apple is, predictably, not jazzed about the situation, and has taken action through train-the-trainer schemes, threats of business termination with recidivist plants, and -- most notably -- the recovery of $2.2 million in recruitment fees that international contract workers should not have had to pay. It should come as no shock to learn that cheaper overseas factories are cutting illegal corners, but it's disappointing to hear Apple's note that most of the 102 audited manufacturers said Cupertino was the only vendor to perform such rigorous compliance checks. Still, we'll take what we can get and the very existence of this report -- which can be savagely skewed to defame Apple's efforts (as demonstrated expertly by The Daily Telegraph below) -- is an encouraging sign that corporate responsibility is being taken seriously. We hope, wherever your geek loyalties and fervor may lie, that you'll agree Apple's leading in the right direction and that its competitors should at the very least have matching monitoring schemes. They may have to swallow some bad PR at first, but sweeping up the dirty details of where gadgets come from is juvenile and has no place in a civilized world. Hit the source link for the full report.
