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Apple's New iPhone Built With Illegal Overtime Teen Labor (bloomberg.com)
Apple's main supplier in Asia has been employing high-school students working illegal overtime to assemble the iPhone X in an effort to catch up with demand after facing production delays, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing several teenagers involved. From a report: A group of 3,000 students from the Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School were sent to work at the local facility run by Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry, known as Foxconn, as part of a three-month stint that was billed as "work experience," and required to graduate, the Financial Times reported. Six of the students told the FT they routinely worked 11-hour days assembling Apple's flagship smartphone, which constitutes illegal overtime for student interns under Chinese law. Apple said an audit did find instances of student interns working overtime, adding that they were employed voluntarily, were compensated and provided benefits, but that they shouldn't have been allowed to work overtime.
The bit that's crazy about this story is actually the source for the FT - It was Apple. This wasn't a bunch of journalists doing investigatory journalism and uncovering something. This was Apple did its own internal audit, discovered abuses, and punished the company carrying them out.
I bet you won't find the other phone manufacturers busy auditing their suppliers for abuses like that.
I doubt if any of this is voluntary. The job itself is not voluntary. All students in all schools are required to work 3 months in a factory (or on a farm) to instill solidarity with the proletariat. The only other option is a 3 month military training stint. They are paid the same wages as an entry level full time worker/farmer/soldier.
I doubt if the overtime is voluntary either. You can't run an assembly line with half the assemblers missing.
Mandatory overtime is legal in America, and is fairly common, so I don't see what the big deal is here. 11 hours of work isn't going to kill anyone, and the majority likely appreciated the extra pay.
There was an article discussing the mandatory overtime and sometimes low pay for these mega factories. I am not at all surprised things haven't changed.
https://www.wired.com/2010/11/thomas-lee-foxconn/all/1/?viewall=true
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Define "mandatory".
If the boss says "We have a big order coming in, so everyone has to work 10 extra hours next week so we can ship on time", and you refuse, then you can be fired.
Of course, if you have a valid reason for refusing the extra work, then you can explain that to your boss, and he would likely accommodate your needs. But that is between you and the boss, and not up to the government.
This may not be true in all states, but there is no federal restriction on firing someone for refusing overtime work, nor do most states prohibit it.