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Apple's New iPhone Built With Illegal Overtime Teen Labor (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-the-iPhone-got-made dept.

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.

6 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Apple has used this company, no matter what by evolutionary · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, Foxconn, had a rep for inhumane human labor practices, including making people stand for 12 hours assembling iphones. Foxconn doesn't change it's stripes because of a little embarrassment, and Apple know it. Much like the Gap, Joe Fresh, Blue Navy (owned by the Gap), continue to use manufacturers that quietly hire child labor no matter how many times similar scandals come up. If Apple really cared, they would stop using Foxconn whose reputation for what we consider basic human decency let alone laws relating to it, is very poor. If WE really cared about any of these issues, we would stop buying iphones (we can always get used ones if it MUST be an iphone), or better yet get a phone with an open source android derivative (Replicant, Cyanogen, LinageOS), but as people with eager faces prepare to sign either a free phone for a 3 year contract or plot $700 USD for the newest iphone, it seems pretty clear where our priorities are. And no matter how many times we see stories like this, we'll keep buying iphones. So Apple will keep using Foxconnm, who will repeat profitable inhuman labor practices.

    --
    "Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
    1. Re:Apple has used this company, no matter what by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Okay, Foxconn, had a rep for inhumane human labor practices, including making people stand for 12 hours assembling iphones. Foxconn doesn't change it's stripes because of a little embarrassment, and Apple know it. Much like the Gap, Joe Fresh, Blue Navy (owned by the Gap), continue to use manufacturers that quietly hire child labor no matter how many times similar scandals come up. If Apple really cared, they would stop using Foxconn whose reputation for what we consider basic human decency let alone laws relating to it, is very poor. If WE really cared about any of these issues, we would stop buying iphones (we can always get used ones if it MUST be an iphone), or better yet get a phone with an open source android derivative (Replicant, Cyanogen, LinageOS), but as people with eager faces prepare to sign either a free phone for a 3 year contract or plot $700 USD for the newest iphone, it seems pretty clear where our priorities are. And no matter how many times we see stories like this, we'll keep buying iphones. So Apple will keep using Foxconnm, who will repeat profitable inhuman labor practices.

      And who do you suggest Apple uses? All the other CMs are exactly the same - or worse. In fact, the Apple lines at Foxconn are generally the lines that are the most humane - Apple has forced changes in the way its products are build such that Foxconn's Apple lines really do behave quite ethically. Now, you might ask why Samsung, etc., aren't demanding the same of their CMs (who also include Foxconn), because every criticism of Apple's labour certainly applies to them.

      You could ask Apple force Foxconn to clean things up, and I'm sure Apple would actually love to. Except well, it might not be so great if Apple finds problems with the lines making competitor's products just around launch time. Imagine Apple forcing Samsung to halt Galaxy S/Note production before launch because of bad labour practices.

      And your "open source android" phone really just shows you're an android fanboy ranting, because like I said, except for very few phones out there, all the big ones have exactly the same problem. Even worse, because only Apple decided to clean house, much to the annoyance of a lot of workers (who wanted to work overtime for more money, but Apple's overtime limits prevent that).

    2. Re:Apple has used this company, no matter what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You know that APL has 200 billion in it's bank, right? It could literally build it's own manufacturing plant with overpaid unionized workers with stupidly good benefits anywhere in the world and have enough to stop selling anything and survive for at least a decade. Bringing other phones into the argument is unecessary because no other company has the liquidity and the hyper-loyal fanbase.

      No other company is in this unique position, but time and again, has proven bottom line > all. Not surprising really.

    3. Re:Apple has used this company, no matter what by eth1 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      And who do you suggest Apple uses? All the other CMs are exactly the same - or worse.

      (speaking from a US perspective) I suggest that when we discover some company operating anywhere in such a way that would violate US labor or environmental laws if they were operating domestically, that the US totally ban imports of any products of that company, as well as other products incorporating those products, for a period matching the length of the violation plus 12 months. That means they need to be paid at least the US min. wage, etc. ("That company" to include anything in the corporate ownership "tree" such that you can't just transfer stuff to another subsidiary)

      That should make it sufficiently risky that anyone wanting to sell their crap here should shape up a a bit. Yes, prices would go up, but I'm fine with that.

  2. Making Apple great again by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I guess this is what Tim Cook meant about conquering the Chinese education market. To the victor go the spoils but surely there are UN conventions about child labour in POW camps.

    Although hopefully these Chinese students are learning to Think Different and that this will be the generation of young people that finally overthrows the one party state of their great grandparents, tired of being worker slaves for tax-avoiding California-based multinationals.

    With Trump promising to bring home manufacturing, high school students across the USA will be demanding equal opportunity. Every child will get a free iPhone as part of their education, provided they do the appropriate number of shifts at their local Apple Inc factory.

  3. Re:As long as it is voluntary by clovis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You think 11 hours of work every day for three months is not going to kill anyone?

    It might if you were a patient of these people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    But unlikely if you're a young person.

    The article did not say they were working 7-day weeks, nor was it every day, but if it were so, that's only a 77 hour week.
    Many of us here on Slashdot have worked projects that called for putting in those kind of hours for months, and I'll bet some are working like that right now. The difference us and the Foxconn kids? They get paid for the overtime and we don't.