Apple assembly plant conditions still harsh in China: activists

(Reuters) – Working conditions at Foxconn’s gargantuan Chinese factories that assemble Apple Inc’s slick gadgets have barely improved despite pledges this year to halt labor violations, workers’ rights activists and employees said on Thursday.

Foxconn Technology Group, Apple’s main global contract manufacturer run by Taiwanese tycoon Terry Gou and employing 1.2 million workers inChina, has come under fire in recent
years for running massive "sweatshops" to mass produce high-end iPads and iPhones.

Last month, Gou defended his firm’s industrial workshops that have helped outmuscle rivals through vast economies of scale and cost savings that have made it the world’s largest contract manufacturer.

"What’s wrong with sweatshops?" Gou told Chinese workers visiting Taiwan in late April. "We toil hard with blood and sweat, so long as we don’t break any laws. I believe in reaping what you sow," he added in videoclip posted on YouTube.

Following a spate of critical reports detailing unsafe factory practices at Foxconn plants that have triggered worker deaths and suicides, Apple this year allowed the U.S.-based Fair Labor Association (FLA) to conduct a high-profile and extensive probe of
Foxconn’s China factories.

The report, released in March and based on 35,000 worker interviews, unearthed labor violations including extreme work hours and unpaid overtime. As a result, Apple and Foxconn pledged major improvements including cutting workloads, improving safety protocols
and upgrading workers’ housing and quality of life.

A fresh report released on Thursday by labor watchdog Student & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), based on visits to several Foxconn factories and 170 worker interviews, found rights violations "remain the norm" including high production targets,
inhumane treatment and signs of overall salary cuts.

"The frontline management continue to impose humiliating disciplinary measures on workers," it said.

"The above findings demonstrate that Apple and Foxconn have not turned over a new leaf," the report added.

Like other China-focused labor advocacy groups, Hong Kong-based SACOM has released a number of hard-hitting and prominent reports on Foxconn in recent years.

Foxconn workers staged strikes in April at separate plants in northern and central China, including a group that threatened to collectively jump from a roof over pay and work conditions.

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Posted by Awais Khan on Jun 1 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry