Apple Suppliers in China Under Fire

Story first appeared in the Detroit Free Press.

A long-awaited report on conditions at Chinese factories that make Apple products confirmed the worst: long hours, low wages and poor working conditions for employees.


Apple, in response, says it will ensure that overseas employees have better working conditions.


Investigators from the Washington-based Fair Labor Association, at Apple's request, went to China to look at Foxconn Technology Group factories in Guanlan, Longhua, and Chengdu, where Apple iPads and iPhones are assembled for sale across the world. Products for other companies, including Dell, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, are made there, too.  A Memphis Employment Lawyer has been following the case for some time.


At the Foxconn factories, the average workweek for an employee is 60 hours, which exceeds both the FLA code standard and Chinese legal limit, the month-long investigation found. Some employees worked as many as 70 hours a week in November and December 2011. However, FLA said Foxconn has agreed to remedy this by July 2013, and bring it down to the legal 49 hours, while "protecting workers' pay."


Apple has come under fire recently for producing hit products overseas with low-paid workers in less-than-optimum conditions. Monthly salaries range from $360 to $455. The new Apple CEO was in China on Wednesday visiting a new Foxconn factory, not the ones mentioned in the report.  Consumer watchdog groups say that the report is a start but that Apple must really change.


Foxconn -- cited for making workers put in many more hours per week than is legal -- will take more than a year to change direction. Foxconn has more than 1.2 million employees.  Labor and Employment Lawyers in Shanghai are following the cases with interest.


SumofUs, along with Change.org, has received more than 250,000 signatures from consumers asking Apple to require its suppliers to treat overseas workers better.

See also this related story.
For more law related news, please visit the Nation of Law blog.
For more business related news, please visit the Business News blog.

Apple Inc Critisized for Overseas Factory Conditions

Story first appeared in the Yahoo news.

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc and its main contract manufacturing Foxconn agreed to tackle violations of conditions among the 1.2 million workers assembling iPhones and iPads in a landmark decision that could change the way Western companies do business in China.

Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, whose subsidiary Hon Hai Precision Industry assembles Apple devices in factories in China, will hire tens of thousands of new workers, eliminate illegal overtime, improve safety protocols and upgrade workers' housing and other amenities.  A Memphis Employment Lawyer follows the case.

It is a response to one of the largest investigations ever conducted of a U.S. company's operations outside of America. Apple had agreed to the probe by the independent Fair Labor Association (FLA) to stem a crescendo of criticism that its products were built on the backs of mistreated Chinese workers.  The case raises the intrigue of Employment Lawyers in Memphis and elsewhere in the United States due to the severity of the accusations.

The association, in disclosing its findings from a survey of three Foxconn plants and over 35,000 workers, said it had unearthed multiple violations of labor law, including extreme hours and unpaid overtime.

The FLA President expects the agreement between Apple, the world's most valuable listed company, and Foxconn, which supplies 50 percent of the world's consumer electronics, to have far reaching affects.

That could affect brand names that have contracts with the Taiwanese company, including Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon.com Inc, Motorola Mobility Holdings, Nokia Oyj and Sony Corp.

The agreement is a sign of the increasing power of Chinese workers to command higher wages given increasing prices in China, and an ageing workforce that has led to labor shortages.

Working conditions at many Chinese factories supplying Western brands are considerably inferior to those at Foxconn, experts say.

Still, labor costs are a fraction of the total cost of most high-tech devices, so consumers might not see higher prices.

Under the agreement, Foxconn said it will reduce working hours to 49 per week, including overtime, while keeping total compensation for workers at its current level. The FLA audit found workers in the three factories put in more than 60 hours per week on average during peak production periods.

To keep up with demand, Foxconn will hire tens of thousands of additional workers and build more housing and canteens.

Apple CEO, who took over from the late co-founder last year, has shown a willingness to tackle the criticism head-on.

But New York-based labor advocacy group China Labor Watch said the report failed to address the workers' primary concerns.

The agreement has not gone down well with some Foxconn workers, either.

An employee who has worked at a Foxconn factory at Longhua in southern Guangdong province for four years, complained that her salary will drop to just over 2,000 yuan a month ($317) from over 4,000 yuan.

FIRST PHASE

Hon Hai shares fell on Friday around 1.3 percent, underperforming a rising market. Apple shares, which hit a record high on Wednesday, dropped 1.3 percent on Thursday.

The report marks the first phase of a probe into Apple's contract manufacturers across the world's most populous nation.

Foreign firms have long grappled with working conditions in China, dubbed the world's factory because of its low wages and efficient coastal transport and shipping infrastructure.

Global protests against Apple swelled after reports spread in 2010 of a string or suicides at Foxconn's plants in southern China, blamed on inhumane working conditions and the alienation that migrant laborers, often from impoverished provinces, face in a bustling metropolis like Shenzhen, where two of the three factories the FLA inspected are located.  A Personal InjuryLawyer in Memphis is following the case, in regards to reports of employee suicides as a result of poor working conditions and wages.

In months past, protesters have shown up at Apple events - the rollout of the new iPad, the iPhone 4GS and its annual shareholders' meeting - holding up placards urging the $500 billion corporation to make "ethical" devices.

Some have also criticized the FLA for its close alignment with corporations.

NEW DORMS

The FLA in its report sought measures that will reduce working hours while ensuring that migrant laborers - often willing to pile up the overtime to make ends meet back home - do not forego much-needed income.

Foxconn committed to building new housing to ease situations where multiple workers were squeezed into rooms that seemed inhumane by Western standards. The accommodations do not compare to posh New York or Philadelphia Apartments. It agreed to improve accident reporting and help workers enroll for social welfare and increase their participation in committees and other union structures.

The FLA will conduct onsite verification visits to make sure the agreement is implemented.

Apple is not the first U.S. consumer brand to respond to criticism of working conditions at factories abroad making its products.

Nike Inc implemented wide-ranging changes to improve safety and working conditions after it was rocked by reports in the 1990s that its contractors in China and elsewhere forced employees to work in slave-like conditions for a pittance.

Yet even Nike stopped short of Apple's and Foxconn's hiring and income-boosting spree. Last month, Foxconn said it was raising salaries by 16 to 25 percent, and was advertising a basic monthly wage, not including overtime, of 1,800 yuan ($290) in the southern city of Shenzhen, Guangdong province - where the monthly minimum wage is 1,500 yuan.

Future forays by the FLA over coming months will encompass Apple contractors Quanta Computer Inc, Pegatron Corp, Wintek Corp and other suppliers, all notoriously tight-lipped about their operations.