labor laws
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Samsung's jailed union-busting chairman steps down
Lee Sang-hoon is stepping down from his position as chairman of Samsung Electronics' board. According to Reuters, the company will be appointing a successor soon. Lee Sang-hoon was found guilty of sabotaging legitimate union activities and sentenced to 18 months in prison last December. As ZDNet reports, he was using several tactics to disrupt and disarm unions, including delaying negotiations between management and laborers, closing subcontracting companies with active unions, and digging for information that could persuade key union members to leave. Twenty-five other people were convicted on similar charges, according to the BBC.
Uber and Postmates sue California over gig worker law
It didn't take long for tech companies to take legal action in hopes of thwarting California's gig economy labor law. Uber and Postmates have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block AB5, which makes it harder for companies to define workers as contractors, just as it takes effect. They (along with two workers, Lydia Olson and Miguel Perez) claim the law violates both US and state Constitutions by denying the guarantees of equal protection. The companies alleged that the bill, and its sponsor Lorena Gonzalez, unfairly singled out the gig economy while letting other industries off the hook.
US labor board will investigate Google's recent firings
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has launched another investigation into Google. This time, the NLRB is investigating whether Google violated federal labor laws when it fired four employees late last month. The investigation will determine if Google discouraged employees from engaging in union activity, an NLRB spokesperson told CNBC.
Fired Google employees will file federal labor charges against the company
Four Google employees fired last week say they were let go for engaging in protected labor organizing, and that they plan to fight back. In a letter shared today, they say they're filing unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.
Court says Tesla and Musk's tweet violated labor laws
Tesla broke labor laws by interfering with legitimate union organizing, among other things, California administrative law judge Amita Baman Tracy has ruled. The automaker apparently committed a number of violations against the National Labor Relations Act in 2017 and 2018, the court decided regarding the complaints filed by the United Auto Workers union. According to Bloomberg and Reuters, one of the violations cited in the filing is a tweet by company chief Elon Musk. In the tweet, he said that there's nothing stopping its car plant employees from organizing, but he also asked: "[W]hy pay union dues [and] give up stock options for nothing[?]"
California governor signs labor law meant to fix the gig economy
It was really just a matter of time, but it's now official: California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the state's Assembly Bill 5 into law. The measure is intended to reclassify many gig economy workers as employees by applying a test that determines whether or not they qualify as contractors. If they do, they have to be free from the control of a company, handle work beyond the typical scope of that company's business and routinely engage in an independently-formed business similar to the work they perform. In theory, this will force many ridesharing and courier companies to offer rudimentary labor rights like minimum wage, overtime and paid leave.
California advances bill offering protections to gig economy workers
Gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft have fought hard to avoid treating workers as full-fledged employees, but they might not have much choice in California before long. The state Assembly has passed a bill, AB5, that would require businesses to prove that someone is an independent contractor and thus doesn't merit employee benefits. They would have to show that a worker isn't controlled by the company, isn't performing tasks at the core of the company's business and operates their own independent business. If not, they'd have to be treated as employees and receive benefits like overtime pay, minimum wages, health care and parental leave.
National Labor Committee report on Chinese CE factories uncovers deplorable conditions
Yesterday, the National Labor Committee produced a report on the working conditions at the KYE Factory in Dongguan City, Guangdong, China. KYE operates (like many factories in China) a live-work facility and generated sales of $400 million in 2008. KYE manufactures outsourced products for HP, Best Buy, Samsung, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and ASUS. Their largest customer, however, is reportedly Microsoft. The report details some of what we've come to expect in stories of labor abuses -- near children, most of them women, working for 16 or 17 hours a day, living in nearly deplorable conditions, for less than a dollar an hour -- all so that the world's ever-growing need for / addiction to consumer electronics can be fed. Now, the gadget industry isn't the only offender by a stretch -- but it's quickly becoming one of the largest (in addition to producing a truly horrific amount of toxic garbage). After the break are some choice facts from the report that our readers might be interested in ingesting, so read on.
Trade unions take issue with "iPod City" report
So even though Apple's investigation of the Chinese manufacturing plant that's come to be known as "iPod City" found no egregious violations in the working conditions (except for, you know, the long hours, military-like punishments, and not exactly "Cribs"-style living arrangements), at least one major trade union conglomerate isn't all that happy with its conclusions. Speaking to BBC News, the director of human and trade union rights at the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Janek Kuczkiewicz, noted that his organization was "not impressed either by the report or by the findings of Apple." Most troubling to the ICFTU was the fact that only 100 of the over 30,000 employees working at the Foxconn-owned plant were interviewed by Apple's special investigative team; and since the conditions under which the interviews were held is unknown (i.e. were they being watched by supervisors and told to just smile and nod?), Kuczkiewicz stressed that "we have serious reservations about the report." He went on to point out that there are other labor standards such as the freedoms from discrimination, of association, and to bargain collectively that were not necessarily enjoyed by the Foxconn employees. While it's certainly admirable that not everyone is simply lauding Apple for its inquiry and assuming massive changes are underway, it's also important to realize that when doing business in a foreign country, outside corporations don't always have the final say on how things are run; so as much as Mr. Kuczkiewicz would like to see the workers band together and demand $5.15 an hour, we're not sure how well that would go over with the Chinese government. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that manufacturers are driving each other to find cheaper and cheaper labor in order to maintain already thin margins, and when that's the case, even a company as rich and powerful as Apple can do little to create the utopic working conditions that we'd all like to see.[Via The Inquirer and PC Pro]
Apple completes "iPod City" investigation into Foxconn
Well, looks like Apple's all done with that investigation into Foxconn's 200,000 person manufacturing facility where some 30,000 people assemble iPods for a living. Apparently Cupertino farmed out some of the work to a firm that specializes in workplace standards of conduct, and put in over 1200 "person-hours" (i.e. a team of 5 people working 40 hours a week for 30 workdays) into investigating everybody from line workers to executives to the janitors at the plant. The long and short of it is Apple apparently did not find child or forced labor, learned that more than half of iPod city residents were earning more than minimum wage (and none below), and that there was no forced overtime, but it was found that workweeks too infrequently went long (as often as 35% of the time), some interim dorms for the workers sounded pretty harsh (think: rows of triple bunk-beds on a factory floor), and some workers were "made to stand at attention" when they did something wrong. That Apple took special attention to that last bit is only a wee bit ironic, given Steve's reputation for flying off the handle and firing people on the spot, but hey, "Apple has a zero tolerance policy for any instance, isolated or not, of any treatment of workers that could be interpreted as harsh," and that's the way it is. You know, come to think of it all this gadget blogging is wearing a little thin -- all this iPod assembly stuff kinda sounds like the life for us. Where do we sign up to live in the real iPod city, and not this fake one we've built for ourselves?[Thanks, Motoi & Joey]
Apple issues Report on iPod Manufacturing
Apple has released a report on the alleged abuses in the iPod factory that we reported a few weeks ago. Apple sent a team of investigators to the factory and question and spoke to a number of randomly picked workers. Here is what they concluded, in a nice billeted list: No evidence of child or forced labor was found Dormitories are offered to all workers (there are 200.000 workers in the complex though fewer than 15% of those work on iPods) free of charge, but living in them is optional (most works choose to live in the dorms) Most of the dorms met with Apple's standards, however 3 recently converted dorms (they were factories before) did not, and the vendor has purchased land and is in the process of building replacements All workers make at least the local minimum wage (which may seem low to us, but in the context it isn't overly low) with many employees making more. Apple did find that reporting hours and the pay structure were too complex. The vendor is redoing both processes. No forced overtime was found, however, the Apple weekly limit of a 60 hour work week with one day off was exceeded 35% of the time with workers working more then 6 straight days 25% of the time. Apple believes this to be excessive and is working with the vendor to correct it. I am very impressed with the way Apple is handling this. At the end of the report they point out that the firm of Verité has been hired to continue the monitoring of conditions at these factories. Good job, Apple, and here's hoping that some people's lives will improve just a little bit because of all this.
Apple: "iPod City" investigation still underway
Despite recent comments by a Foxconn spokesperson that Apple had already investigated and found no problems with the Chinese factory that has come to be known as "iPod City," BusinessWeek is reporting that the probe is still in fact underway, with an Apple representative reiterating that the company takes "allegations of noncompliance very seriously." According to spokesperson Steve Dowling, Apple is in the midst of a "thorough audit" of the Hon Hai-owned plant, which had recently admitted to breaking labor laws concerning overtime, but which continues to deny other allegations contained in the original Daily Mail exposé. Specifically, Dowling says that the auditors are looking into "employee working and living conditions," conducting interviews with workers and their managers (separately, we hope), and generally making sure that the factory lives up to a supplier code of conduct that supposedly "sets the bar higher than accepted industry standards." This is all very good news indeed, but now Apple faces yet another hurdle in the form of a jaded public highly skeptical of corporate-speak, meaning that whether the investigation turns up violations or not, the company may still have a hard time convincing folks to accept the auditors' final verdict.[Via AppleInsider, image courtesy of Mail on Sunday]
"iPod City" admits labor law violations
In what would seem to be a 180-degree reversal from last week's vehement denials concerning the Daily Mail's "iPod City" exposé, Hon Hai Precision Industry's Foxconn factory has now come forward to admit that it has indeed been in violation of Chinese labor laws. Even though the company -- which was accused of underpaying and overworking employees -- had initially threatened to take legal action over the story, ChinaCSR is now reporting that a Foxconn spokesperson has publicly copped to the fact that its workers are forced to be on duty an extra 80 hours a month, which is 44 more hours of overtime than Chinese regulations allow (or 1.5 to 2 extra hours per day depending on the length of their work week). On the plus side, company representative Li Zong did point out that the workers are being paid according the minimum salary standards of the Shenzhen local government, so at least all those extra hours will help them maintain the highest standard of living for the scant amount of free time they get to spend in their overcrowded dormitories (supposedly pictured above). We realize that a lot of people are arguing that it's not fair to single out Apple when this is an industry-wide problem, but the fact of the matter is that Apple has been called out, and this new revelation only makes it that much more important for the company to conduct its promised investigation in a thorough and open manner.Update: It should also be noted that the ChinaCSR article quotes Li as saying that "Apple has sent a special team to investigate, but has found no problem with Foxconn." While it's not clear when this investigation took place, we're hoping that Apple has more to say on the matter, because it sounds more than a little shady if Cupertino gave Foxconn the thumbs-up while these admitted violations were occuring.[Via The Inquirer]
