Apple’s iPhone X assembled by illegal Chinese student labour
Apple’s iPhone X assembled by illegal student labour
Interns say they were ‘forced’ to work at Foxconn plant
in China in order to graduate
Foxconn profits sink on iPhone X supply challenges
By Yuan Yang in Zhengzhou November 21, 2017
Apple’s main supplier in Asia has been employing students
illegally working overtime to assemble the iPhone X, as it struggles to catch
up with demand after production delays.
Six high school students told the Financial Times they
routinely work 11-hour days assembling the iPhone X at a factory in Zhengzhou,
China, which constitutes illegal overtime for student interns under Chinese
law.
The six said they were among a group of 3,000 students
from Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School sent in September to work at the local
facility run by Taiwan-based Apple supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry,
better known as Foxconn.
The students, aged 17 to 19, said they were told that a
three-month stint at the factory was required “work experience” that they had
to complete in order to graduate.
“We are being forced by our school to work here,” said Ms
Yang, an 18-year-old student training to be a train attendant who declined to
use her first name for fear of punishment. “The work has nothing to do with our
studies.” She said she assembled up to 1,200 iPhone X cameras a day.
The school declined to comment.
When contacted about the students’ complaints, Apple and
Foxconn acknowledged they had discovered cases of student interns working
overtime and said they were taking remedial action. But both companies said the
students were working voluntarily.
Apple said an audit has turned up “instances of student
interns working overtime at a supplier facility in China”, adding “we’ve
confirmed the students worked voluntarily, were compensated and provided
benefits, but they should not have been allowed to work overtime”.
Foxconn said that “all work was voluntary and compensated
appropriately, [but] the interns did work overtime in violation of our policy”
prohibiting student interns working more than 40 hours a week.
The launch of the anniversary iPhone X was marred by
production issues and was delayed to November from Apple’s typical September
release date. The weeks of idle capacity caused Foxconn’s quarterly profit
to drop 39 per cent.
According to a long-time Foxconn employee, the Zhengzhou
factory hires students every year during the busy season between August and December.
Such hiring can swell numbers at the plant from a base of 100,000 to more than
300,000 workers producing up to 20,000 iPhones a day, the employee said.
But this year, the need for seasonal workers was greater,
the employee added.
“The purchasing practices of Apple and others are
designed to cut costs, and do things ‘just in time’,” said Jenny Chan,
assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “This leads to the
use of student labourers who can be flexibly hired.”
Foxconn said its internship programme was “carried out in
co-operation with local governments and a number of vocational schools in
China”.
The education ministry of Henan, where Zhengzhou is the
capital, issued notices to all vocational schools in the central Chinese
province to send their “work experience students” to Foxconn, according to a
person who saw the notice.
Students also came from the nearby cities of
Kaifeng, Nanyang, and Xinxiang, according to a Foxconn employee working on the
iPhone X.
The education ministry could not be reached for comment.
Providing flexible student labour is one of the
preferential policies that the Henan government offers Foxconn in order to keep
it there.
“Henan province does everything in its power to make sure
Foxconn thrives here. It’s not just about tax revenues — it’s about industrial
upgrading, building an export industry, having a foreign partnership [with
Apple],” said a local official.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights
reserved.
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