Investigation: Apple Failing To Protect Chinese Factory Workers

mrspoonsi writes with the findings of an investigation into working conditions at a factory that makes Apple products. Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation. Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories. Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions. Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai. One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off. Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move. Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."

Comments

Pegatron vs Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work in China, in tech business. I have been to several Pegatron's factories in China as well as to several Foxconn factories

All the factories that I have visited are, to put it mildly, LABOR CAMPS

But there is a difference

The factories run by Foxconn, the condition has improved. While it's still "labor camp" like, at least it is humane --- and Foxconn having been scarred by the exposure (of suicides and whatnots) they are at least playing by the rules

Not so in Pegatron factories

Conditions there are way beyond inhumane. They lock workers inside a room, with few ventilation, and ask the worker to apply strong chemicals, chemicals that can destroy body cells if inhaled, that are carcinogenic, onto the devices that they are working on

Many ex-workers from Pegatron develop all kinds of ailments after being exposed to those chemicals, and there have been numerous protest against Pegatron, in many Chinese cities

I am not saying that Foxconn is an angel, no, they run labor camps as well. But at the very least, they are toeing the line, for the moment

Re:Pegatron vs Foxconn

[ShanghaiBill]

If I understand the situation correctly, workers from other provinces require a permit to live in a different part of China.

No, this is wrong. No permit is required. If you move to a different province, you cannot use social services, such as hospitals, subsidized housing, and public schools, but you can live and work there. Use of the social services is NOT tied to employment. Instead rural workers just get screwed and there is nothing they, or their employer, can do about it. They pay taxes to support services they cannot use. Furthermore, this status is hereditary, so even if someone is born in the city, they still are considered "rural" if their grandparents lived in the countryside in 1949.

Re:12 hour factory shifts?

[TheGratefulNet]

AFTER unions got torn apart, in the US, perhaps.

but in my grandfather's day (turn of the 1900's), they fought for better working conditions and this is where the 5-day work week came from, time and a half (or more!) for overtime and I remember my GF telling me that 'every 4 hours, they are required to let us eat'. even today, at my 'cushy IT job' I don't get a food break every 4 hours. not that I need it, but its a thing that we once had and lost due to 'those evil unions' (sigh).

so, conditions were horrible in the US, we fought to make them more human-like and we won.

then, we lost them ALL. pretty much all of it.

cops and other groups have unions and no one says a word about it. but if IT guys or factory guys want to have a union, its 'hey, why do you hate america' and shit like that.

if my GF was still alive, he'd be furious for the things he and his peers fought for and yet we let drift away over the years.

Let's actually look at studies...

[Firethorn]

scholar.google.com if anybody's interested.

Effects of scheduled overtime on labor productivity - Abstract says 'no significant effect on productivity'
Productivity in manufacturing...: As hours/day dropped, they worked more days(of the year), so productivity remained about the same.
Scheduled Overtime and Labor Productivity: Quantitative Analysis: Productivity drops 10-15% for 50/60 hour work weeks.
Effect of Reducing Interns' Work Hours: Surprise, Surprise, NOT working medical interns for 24+ hours straight reduces serious medical errors by more than 50%.

Re: 12 hour factory shifts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Abbe.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap17.htm

To quote:

"It was found that everywhere, even abstracting from all other cultural and social interests, a moderate shortening of the working day did not involve loss, but brought a direct gain. The German [p. 213] pioneer in the movement for the shortening of the workingman's day, Ernst Abbé, the head of one of the greatest German factories, wrote many years ago that the shortening from nine to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of the day's product, but an increase, and that this increase did not result from any supplementary efforts by which the intensity of the work would be reinforced in an unhygienic way.[41] This conviction of Abbé still seems to hold true after millions of experiments over the whole globe."