China Contractor Again
Faces Labor Issue on iPhones
By DAVID BARBOZA and
CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: September 10,
2012
SHANGHAI — As Apple
prepares to unveil the latest iPhone this week, the company’s manufacturing
partner in China, Foxconn Technology, is coming under renewed criticism over
labor practices after reports that vocational students were being compelled to
work at plants making iPhones and their components.
Foxconn has acknowledged
using student “interns” on manufacturing lines, but says they are free to leave
at any time. But two worker advocacy groups said Monday that they had spoken
with students who said they had been forced by their teachers to assemble
iPhones at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, in north-central China.
Additionally, last week
Chinese state-run news media reported that several vocational schools in the
city of Huai’an, in eastern China, required hundreds of students to work on
assembly lines at a Foxconn plant to help ease worker shortages. According to
one of the articles, Huai’an students were ordered to manufacture cables for
Apple’s new iPhone 5, which is expected to be introduced on Wednesday.
“They said they are forced
to work by the teachers,” Li Qiang, founder of China Labor Watch, one of the
advocacy organizations and a frequent critic of Foxconn’s labor policies, said
in an interview on Monday. Mr. Li said his staff had spoken with multiple
workers and students who, as recently as Sunday, said that 10 of 87 workers on
an iPhone assembly line were students.
“They don’t want to work
there — they want to learn,” said Mr. Li. “But if they don’t work, they are
told they will not graduate, because it is a very busy time with the new iPhone
coming, and Foxconn does not have enough workers without the students.”
Foxconn, in a statement,
said that students made up just 2.7 percent of its 1.2 million-person work
force in China — about 32,000 workers — and that schools “recruit the students
under the supervision of the local government, and the schools also assign
teachers to accompany and monitor the students throughout their internship.”
A spokesman for Apple
declined to comment on the recent cases, but he said Apple’s code of conduct
tells suppliers to follow local labor laws when dealing with interns and other
workers.
Foxconn has come under
intense scrutiny in recent months over working conditions inside factories that
manufacture smartphones, tablet computers and other electronic devices for
Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other technology giants. Investigations by
newspapers, outside groups and companies like Apple itself have revealed
illegal amounts of overtime, crowded working conditions, under-age workers,
improper disposal of hazardous waste and, in some cases, industrial accidents
that have killed four people and injured more than 100 at Foxconn and other
Chinese factories that supply Apple.
Earlier this year,
following highly publicized reports of such problems, Apple asked an outside
organization to audit working conditions inside the plants where the bulk of
iPhones, iPads and other Apple products are built. In the wake of that audit,
Foxconn announced it would significantly raise wages for many of its employees
and reduce overtime hours to come into compliance with Chinese law.
In August, the Fair Labor
Association — the group hired by Apple to audit Foxconn — said Foxconn had made
progress at cutting employees’ hours and improving working conditions, but that
those shifts would require Foxconn to recruit “tens of thousands of extra
workers.” The group also said that Foxconn and Apple had adopted policies to
make sure that student interns knew they could resign from Foxconn and still
graduate, and to link the jobs they performed inside Foxconn with their
studies.
“I am concerned about
these recent reports, and we’re following up,” said Auret van Heerden,
president and chief executive of the Fair Labor Association, in an interview.
“If there have been any breakdowns in policies, we expect changes to be made.”
Worker advocates say
Foxconn is under intense pressure at critical moments — like leading up to the
release of a new product, like the iPhone 5 — to fill huge orders quickly.
“When students enroll in
vocational schools, they should receive a genuine education,” said Debby Chan
Sze Wan with Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, the other
group that spoke to interns. “Standing in a factory, doing the same motion for
10 hours a day, this is not an education. And they are told they cannot leave,
that they must work or they will be dismissed from school.”
Articles in the Chinese
press reported that some schools in Huai’an were closed so that students could
work in Foxconn plants, and that students said they were forced to work 12
hours a day. Some of the students are said to have come from the law and
English departments.
Foxconn has strongly
defended its labor practices, complaining that the company is unfairly
scrutinized because it is the biggest manufacturer for Apple, the world’s
best-known consumer electronics company. Analysts say labor abuses — including
improper use of student labor — also occur at factories producing goods for
Samsung, Nokia and other brands.
Last week, Samsung
promised to improve management and conditions at some Chinese suppliers after a
labor rights groups issued a report that said the suppliers were using underage
workers.
No company, however, has
received more attention than Foxconn. A few years ago, a rash of suicides were
reported at its factories. While the suicides were a tiny fraction of its
employees, labor experts began questioning what they called a militarylike
atmosphere within the company.
Apple responded soon after
by sending a team to China, including a delegation led by Tim Cook, now the
company’s chief executive, to look into labor conditions.
Within a year, explosions
at several Apple supplier factories in China highlighted the need to improve
worker safety. More recently, recurring reports about how local governments and
Chinese vocational schools coordinate with the company to fill worker vacancies
have alarmed some labor groups.
After the recent
allegations, local officials in Huai’an issued a statement ordering higher
education institutions to strictly follow policies and correct any
“violations.” The Huai’an government also said many vocational students had
ended their work at Foxconn and returned to school.
“The university told us
it’s a good way to experience corporate culture,” a 19-year-old student told
China Daily newspaper. “Even though many of my classmates are reluctant to go
to Foxconn, our teachers still asked us to work there starting in August.”
Charles Duhigg reported
from New York.
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