NEW YORK -- A new investigative report from human rights watchdog group China Labor Watch claims "rampant" labor rights violations at Foxconn's Shenzhen factory and nine other plants in China that supply Apple.
In fact, the group says, conditions can be "even worse" at other Apple suppliers, including at a Riteng factory in Shanghai.
The report, Beyond Foxconn: Deplorable Working Conditions Characterize Apple’s Entire Supply Chain, is based on interviews of 620 workers in 10 factories making Apple products in China. The information was collected between January and April 2012, often despite obstacles presented by Chinese authorities.
The 132-page report found the following problems to be common in the 10 factories:
- Excessive overtime: The average overtime in most of the factories was between 100 and 130 hours per month, and between 150 and 180 hours per month during peak production season, well above China’s legal limits.
- In most factories, workers generally work 11 hours every day, including weekends and holidays during peak seasons. Normally they can only take a day off every month, or in the peak season may go several months without a day off.
- Low wages compel workers to accept long overtime hours. Most of the factories pay a basic salary equal to the minimum wage stipulated by the local law (around $200/month), so low that workers have to work long hours to support themselves.
- Workers are exposed to a variety of dangerous working conditions. Workers in all the factories reported safety concerns such as metal dust and hazardous working environments.
- All too often, workers find the food offered in the factory cafeterias unsanitary. Housing conditions are frequently overcrowded, dirty, and lacking in facilities.
- Most workers are not familiar with unions and their function. They have little ability to push for reasonable working conditions.
- Some factories do not pay for workers’ social insurance, work injury insurance, and other insurance required by law.
The Riteng factory stands out for its particularly poor working conditions, with conditions even worse than at Foxconn, CLW claims. "On average Riteng workers are on the job nearly 12 hours a day, compared to 10 hours a day at the Foxconn factory. The Riteng workers get only about one day of rest each month. Their overtime hours dwarf those of the Foxconn workers, which themselves are well above the legal limit set in China. For Riteng workers, the average hourly wage is 8.2 RMB ($1.30), well below the still-meager average hourly wage of Foxconn workers of 10.2 RMB ($1.62). Half of Riteng workers rated its safety and health as ‘bad’ compared to just 2% of workers giving this rating to the Foxconn factory."
CLW says its research revealed that the biggest problem overlooked by Apple in its Social Responsibility Reports is the prevalent use of dispatched (contract) labor in their supply chain. Except for Foxconn in Shenzhen which transferred all dispatched workers to direct-hire status in 2011, all other investigated factories overused dispatched labor, including Jabil in Shenzhen, at which dispatched labor made up almost 70% of the workforce. Of note:
1. Factories can use dispatched labor to employ people short-term without having to pay severance compensation.
2. Factories can use dispatched labor to shift responsibility for worker injuries onto another party.
3. Factories can use dispatched labor to prevent workers from organizing into unions or establishing democratic management systems.
4. Factories can reduce other forms of worker compensation, and thus their labor costs, by hiring dispatched labor. For instance, when companies contribute to social insurance programs for dispatched workers, they pay a smaller percentage or sometimes do not sign up workers at all. Their labor costs can be reduced by 10% to 15% in this way.
5. Dispatched workers have no limitation on the amount of overtime that they work. Some have to work more than 150 hours of overtime every month.
6. Dispatched workers often have to pay sizable fees to the dispatching agency.
“The squeezing of factory workers exists throughout Apple’s supply chain in China, and not just at Foxconn,” said Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch. “Apple has the responsibility, and the financial resources, to ensure that needed improvements for workers occur systematically and quickly.”
Founded in 2000, China Labor Watch is an independent not-for-profit organization.
