Post by jeffolie on Apr 9, 2012 15:56:46 GMT -6
Probe Finds ‘Serious and Pressing’ Violations at Foxconn iPlants
March 29, 2012
A monthlong investigation of Foxconn, the extensive factory network that makes Apple products in China, uncovered “serious and pressing” violations of labor standards and Chinese workplace law, according to a detailed report by the Fair Labor Association released Thursday.
Auditors found over 50 violations (.pdf) of FLA standards or Chinese law at the factories, ranging from safety hazards like blocked exits to improper overtime compensation.
“During peak production, the average number of hours worked per week at Foxconn factories exceeded both the FLA Code standard and Chinese legal limits,” reads the report. “This was true in all three factories. Further, there were periods during which some employees worked more than seven days in a row without the required minimum 24-hour break.”
In response to the findings, Foxconn has agreed to bring its factories into complete compliance with Chinese labor laws as well as FLA’s standards on worker hours by July of 2013. In order to help accomplish this, Foxconn has promised to hire thousands of new employees. The factory also vowed to improve safety conditions and housing quality for its workers, and establish a compensation package that protects workers from lost income resulting from less overtime.
“This FLA agreement with Foxconn will safeguard the health and welfare of the company’s employees by bringing their work conditions into compliance with basic human rights standards,” Human Rights First’s Meg Roggensack said in a press release. “The key to the report’s success, however, will be implementation of this agreement.”
The FLA visited three factories in China, interviewed hundreds of workers, and conducted over 35,000 anonymous surveys to gain insight into the conditions inside these plants. Foxconn also supplies products to other well-known companies like Dell, HP and Amazon.
Foxconn employs 1.2 million workers. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said that their current compensation didn’t meet their basic needs, and over 43 percent of workers either experienced or witnessed an onsite accident.
In response to growing concerns about the labor practices at Foxconn, Apple in February became the first tech company to join the ranks of the Fair Labor Association, an auditing group that tries to ensure standard living and working conditions are met in factories worldwide. Inspections began in Foxconn city, and initial reports of conditions within the plants were found to be better than at other factories. Since the audits began, Foxconn has already raised wages of workers once.
Apple has regularly audited its supplier factories since 2006, but after blockbuster sales and earnings in 2011 and a damning report from The New York Times on Apple’s overseas factory conditions, the company came under extra scrutiny. A number of Apple users and fans have since petitioned and protested at Apple Stores worldwide in hopes that Apple would change the status quo.
Both Foxconn and Apple have agreed to implement the FLA’s suggestions, and Foxconn has specific milestones it aims to meet as it reaches its goal of full compliance by 2013.
www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/apple-foxconn-audits/
========================
[ below: captions of 16 slides from Bloomberg] www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2012-03-30/inside-apple-s-foxconn-factory.html
'Serious and Pressing' Violations
An audit of Foxconn Technology Group, the biggest maker of Apple iPhones and iPads, has found "serious and pressing" violations of Chinese labor laws.
Foxconn pledged to cut working hours and give employees more oversight, trying to quell a workers' rights controversy that has dogged Apple and Foxconn for years amid worker suicides and factory explosions.
The relationship between the two companies shows how the reputation of global brands is increasingly tethered to the emerging-market companies they do business with.
Relatives Mourn Suicides
At least 10 employees killed themselves at Foxconn in 2010, more than during any other year. A father mourns his son outside a factory in May 2010.
Responding to criticism, Apple in January became the first technology company to join the Washington-based Fair Labor Association. Inspectors found at least 50 breaches of Chinese labor laws as well as the code of conduct Apple signed with the FLA.
The agency surveyed more than 35,000 workers and logged over 3,000 hours on-site. They found employees working longer hours and more days in a row than Chinese law allows, and uncovered unfair pay for overtime work.
When asked if they want to change working hours and overtime policies, 72 percent of Foxconn employees said no
Apple CEO Tim Cook Visits
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook visited the iPhone production line at the newly built Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park on March 28 after high-level talks with Chinese officials in Beijing.
Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics, will bring hours in line with legal limits by July 2013 and compensate its employees for overtime lost to the shorter workweek, the FLA said.
As a part of its membership in the FLA, Apple has two years to match its labor standards program with the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct. The group was founded in 1999 to address working conditions in the apparel industry.
"We appreciate the work the FLA has done to assess conditions at Foxconn and we fully support their recommendations," Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, said yesterday. "We share the FLA's goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere."
Messages left with Foxconn and Apple's media relations offices today weren't immediately returned.
Explosions in Yantai
A Foxconn factory smolders after an explosion in Yantai, Shandong province, in September. The accident reportedly occurred while electronics parts were being spray-painted. Flames swept the plant.
The Yantai fire followed an explosion in May that killed three workers at Foxconn's Chengdu plant. The FLA report this week cited inconsistent health and safety policies, with workers being excluded from decisions about health and safety.
Employees making Apple devices toil at rates too fast for worker safety, according to China Labor Watch. They have also been exposed to dangerous aluminum dust, the New York-based advocacy group said.
"We are committed to work with Apple to carry out the remediation program developed by both our companies," Foxconn said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Lunch at the Shenzhen Plant
Crowds of Chinese Foxconn employees eat lunch in a dining hall at the Foxconn Shenzhen plant.
Assembly-line employees earn less than $2 an hour, working sometimes more than 60 hours a week piecing together iPads and Microsoft Xbox game consoles for Western consumers.
Foxconn has raised the pay of its workers in China three times since 2010, doubling the basic monthly pay of a junior worker in Shenzhen to 1,800 yuan ($285) from 900 yuan three years ago.
After pay raises and other improvements at Foxconn, employee turnover and suicides are down. So are profit margins at Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn's parent company.
Not Just Apple Products
Apple's rivals aren't rushing to emulate the company's decision to open suppliers to the Fair Labor Association. Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung rely on their own supplier audits. Apple's membership probably won't eliminate all infractions from its supply chain, but joining has set a new mark by which its competitors are judged.
The FLA has found "tons of issues" at Apple facilities and also seen "dramatic" improvements, Chief Executive Officer Auret van Heerden said last month.
An employee works the assembly line at the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen.
Production Line at Foxconn City
Employees work on a production line in the Longhua Science and Technology Park, also known as Foxconn City, in Shenzhen.
Some of the harshest criticisms of Foxconn were inspired by Mike Daisey, whose one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" was running at the Public Theater in New York. Daisey's monologue, and subsequent appearances on major media outlets, described inhumane factory conditions that the public radio program "This American Life" later revealed to be fabricated for dramatic effect.
An Employee Parade
An employee parade at Foxconn's Longhua campus in Shenzhen, August 2010.
The parade was planned as a morale-booster. In January of this year, about 150 workers at Foxconn's plant in Wuhan protested the company's plan to move them to a new production line. Some members threatened to jump from a factory building's rooftop, and 45 employees resigned.
Foxconn is shifting some production from coastal Guangdong province to central Henan and western Sichuan provinces, where labor and land costs are one-third cheaper.
Suicide Nets Installed at the Dorms
Employee dormitories are equipped with protective nets, pictured here at Foxconn's industrial complex in Shenzhen.
Foxconn installed the nets and hired mental-health professionals in response to the spate of suicides that peaked in 2010 with at least 10 deaths.
Suicide Nets at the Factory
A woman walks beneath a safety net surrounding the factory at Foxconn City.
Apple's annual Supplier Responsibility report, first issued in 2007, highlights both the problems and progress at its suppliers. In 2012, records at 93 supplier facilities indicated that more than half of employees exceeded weekly work limits of 60 hours. Thirty-seven facilities had no system to ensure that workers took at least one day off a week.
Criticism of working conditions has been sharp, including a New York Times investigation published in January
Emergency Counseling Center
Foxconn employees operate an emergency hotline in the counseling center at Foxconn City in Shenzhen. The center was set up in 2010 as part of an effort to combat rising cases of depression and suicide.
Queuing Up for Jobs
Crowds of Chinese job-seekers lined up outside the Foxconn Qinghu recruitment center in Shenzhen.
Foxconn supports dozens of employee-owned retail outlets, called Wan Ma Ben Teng. Wan Ma Ben Teng, which means "Full Steam Ahead" in Mandarin, aimed to increase its stores fivefold to 500 by the end of 2011.
Foxconn, which also makes Hewlett-Packard and Dell computers, offers training, loans and subsidies for employees to open their own electronics stores.
Factory Workers Check Circuit Boards
The number of mobile devices will exceed the number of humans in 2012 for the first time, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. More than half of the world's mobile phones are made in China. Factory workers check flexible circuit boards used for making phones at a plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.
Rival Factories Mean Competition
While Apple and Foxconn increase pay and decrease hours, they must also keep an eye on the stiff competition for cheap labor in China. Ninbo Bird is one of China's largest mobile phone manufacturers. Competition from both domestic and foreign brands prompted the company to start its own research and development center and seek markets abroad for its own products. A woman takes a nap near crates holding mobile phone parts at the Ninbo Bird factory.
Employee Awards
Terry Gou, founder and CEO of Foxconn, delivers a speech during a 2011 awards ceremony for employees at the industrial complex in Longhua township. The company recognized about 200 staffers from 26 industrial complexes in China.
Apple Inc AAPL:US 636.230 USD +2.550 +0.40%
March 29, 2012
A monthlong investigation of Foxconn, the extensive factory network that makes Apple products in China, uncovered “serious and pressing” violations of labor standards and Chinese workplace law, according to a detailed report by the Fair Labor Association released Thursday.
Auditors found over 50 violations (.pdf) of FLA standards or Chinese law at the factories, ranging from safety hazards like blocked exits to improper overtime compensation.
“During peak production, the average number of hours worked per week at Foxconn factories exceeded both the FLA Code standard and Chinese legal limits,” reads the report. “This was true in all three factories. Further, there were periods during which some employees worked more than seven days in a row without the required minimum 24-hour break.”
In response to the findings, Foxconn has agreed to bring its factories into complete compliance with Chinese labor laws as well as FLA’s standards on worker hours by July of 2013. In order to help accomplish this, Foxconn has promised to hire thousands of new employees. The factory also vowed to improve safety conditions and housing quality for its workers, and establish a compensation package that protects workers from lost income resulting from less overtime.
“This FLA agreement with Foxconn will safeguard the health and welfare of the company’s employees by bringing their work conditions into compliance with basic human rights standards,” Human Rights First’s Meg Roggensack said in a press release. “The key to the report’s success, however, will be implementation of this agreement.”
The FLA visited three factories in China, interviewed hundreds of workers, and conducted over 35,000 anonymous surveys to gain insight into the conditions inside these plants. Foxconn also supplies products to other well-known companies like Dell, HP and Amazon.
Foxconn employs 1.2 million workers. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said that their current compensation didn’t meet their basic needs, and over 43 percent of workers either experienced or witnessed an onsite accident.
In response to growing concerns about the labor practices at Foxconn, Apple in February became the first tech company to join the ranks of the Fair Labor Association, an auditing group that tries to ensure standard living and working conditions are met in factories worldwide. Inspections began in Foxconn city, and initial reports of conditions within the plants were found to be better than at other factories. Since the audits began, Foxconn has already raised wages of workers once.
Apple has regularly audited its supplier factories since 2006, but after blockbuster sales and earnings in 2011 and a damning report from The New York Times on Apple’s overseas factory conditions, the company came under extra scrutiny. A number of Apple users and fans have since petitioned and protested at Apple Stores worldwide in hopes that Apple would change the status quo.
Both Foxconn and Apple have agreed to implement the FLA’s suggestions, and Foxconn has specific milestones it aims to meet as it reaches its goal of full compliance by 2013.
www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/03/apple-foxconn-audits/
========================
[ below: captions of 16 slides from Bloomberg] www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2012-03-30/inside-apple-s-foxconn-factory.html
'Serious and Pressing' Violations
An audit of Foxconn Technology Group, the biggest maker of Apple iPhones and iPads, has found "serious and pressing" violations of Chinese labor laws.
Foxconn pledged to cut working hours and give employees more oversight, trying to quell a workers' rights controversy that has dogged Apple and Foxconn for years amid worker suicides and factory explosions.
The relationship between the two companies shows how the reputation of global brands is increasingly tethered to the emerging-market companies they do business with.
Relatives Mourn Suicides
At least 10 employees killed themselves at Foxconn in 2010, more than during any other year. A father mourns his son outside a factory in May 2010.
Responding to criticism, Apple in January became the first technology company to join the Washington-based Fair Labor Association. Inspectors found at least 50 breaches of Chinese labor laws as well as the code of conduct Apple signed with the FLA.
The agency surveyed more than 35,000 workers and logged over 3,000 hours on-site. They found employees working longer hours and more days in a row than Chinese law allows, and uncovered unfair pay for overtime work.
When asked if they want to change working hours and overtime policies, 72 percent of Foxconn employees said no
Apple CEO Tim Cook Visits
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook visited the iPhone production line at the newly built Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park on March 28 after high-level talks with Chinese officials in Beijing.
Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics, will bring hours in line with legal limits by July 2013 and compensate its employees for overtime lost to the shorter workweek, the FLA said.
As a part of its membership in the FLA, Apple has two years to match its labor standards program with the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct. The group was founded in 1999 to address working conditions in the apparel industry.
"We appreciate the work the FLA has done to assess conditions at Foxconn and we fully support their recommendations," Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, said yesterday. "We share the FLA's goal of improving lives and raising the bar for manufacturing companies everywhere."
Messages left with Foxconn and Apple's media relations offices today weren't immediately returned.
Explosions in Yantai
A Foxconn factory smolders after an explosion in Yantai, Shandong province, in September. The accident reportedly occurred while electronics parts were being spray-painted. Flames swept the plant.
The Yantai fire followed an explosion in May that killed three workers at Foxconn's Chengdu plant. The FLA report this week cited inconsistent health and safety policies, with workers being excluded from decisions about health and safety.
Employees making Apple devices toil at rates too fast for worker safety, according to China Labor Watch. They have also been exposed to dangerous aluminum dust, the New York-based advocacy group said.
"We are committed to work with Apple to carry out the remediation program developed by both our companies," Foxconn said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
Lunch at the Shenzhen Plant
Crowds of Chinese Foxconn employees eat lunch in a dining hall at the Foxconn Shenzhen plant.
Assembly-line employees earn less than $2 an hour, working sometimes more than 60 hours a week piecing together iPads and Microsoft Xbox game consoles for Western consumers.
Foxconn has raised the pay of its workers in China three times since 2010, doubling the basic monthly pay of a junior worker in Shenzhen to 1,800 yuan ($285) from 900 yuan three years ago.
After pay raises and other improvements at Foxconn, employee turnover and suicides are down. So are profit margins at Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn's parent company.
Not Just Apple Products
Apple's rivals aren't rushing to emulate the company's decision to open suppliers to the Fair Labor Association. Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung rely on their own supplier audits. Apple's membership probably won't eliminate all infractions from its supply chain, but joining has set a new mark by which its competitors are judged.
The FLA has found "tons of issues" at Apple facilities and also seen "dramatic" improvements, Chief Executive Officer Auret van Heerden said last month.
An employee works the assembly line at the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen.
Production Line at Foxconn City
Employees work on a production line in the Longhua Science and Technology Park, also known as Foxconn City, in Shenzhen.
Some of the harshest criticisms of Foxconn were inspired by Mike Daisey, whose one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" was running at the Public Theater in New York. Daisey's monologue, and subsequent appearances on major media outlets, described inhumane factory conditions that the public radio program "This American Life" later revealed to be fabricated for dramatic effect.
An Employee Parade
An employee parade at Foxconn's Longhua campus in Shenzhen, August 2010.
The parade was planned as a morale-booster. In January of this year, about 150 workers at Foxconn's plant in Wuhan protested the company's plan to move them to a new production line. Some members threatened to jump from a factory building's rooftop, and 45 employees resigned.
Foxconn is shifting some production from coastal Guangdong province to central Henan and western Sichuan provinces, where labor and land costs are one-third cheaper.
Suicide Nets Installed at the Dorms
Employee dormitories are equipped with protective nets, pictured here at Foxconn's industrial complex in Shenzhen.
Foxconn installed the nets and hired mental-health professionals in response to the spate of suicides that peaked in 2010 with at least 10 deaths.
Suicide Nets at the Factory
A woman walks beneath a safety net surrounding the factory at Foxconn City.
Apple's annual Supplier Responsibility report, first issued in 2007, highlights both the problems and progress at its suppliers. In 2012, records at 93 supplier facilities indicated that more than half of employees exceeded weekly work limits of 60 hours. Thirty-seven facilities had no system to ensure that workers took at least one day off a week.
Criticism of working conditions has been sharp, including a New York Times investigation published in January
Emergency Counseling Center
Foxconn employees operate an emergency hotline in the counseling center at Foxconn City in Shenzhen. The center was set up in 2010 as part of an effort to combat rising cases of depression and suicide.
Queuing Up for Jobs
Crowds of Chinese job-seekers lined up outside the Foxconn Qinghu recruitment center in Shenzhen.
Foxconn supports dozens of employee-owned retail outlets, called Wan Ma Ben Teng. Wan Ma Ben Teng, which means "Full Steam Ahead" in Mandarin, aimed to increase its stores fivefold to 500 by the end of 2011.
Foxconn, which also makes Hewlett-Packard and Dell computers, offers training, loans and subsidies for employees to open their own electronics stores.
Factory Workers Check Circuit Boards
The number of mobile devices will exceed the number of humans in 2012 for the first time, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. More than half of the world's mobile phones are made in China. Factory workers check flexible circuit boards used for making phones at a plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.
Rival Factories Mean Competition
While Apple and Foxconn increase pay and decrease hours, they must also keep an eye on the stiff competition for cheap labor in China. Ninbo Bird is one of China's largest mobile phone manufacturers. Competition from both domestic and foreign brands prompted the company to start its own research and development center and seek markets abroad for its own products. A woman takes a nap near crates holding mobile phone parts at the Ninbo Bird factory.
Employee Awards
Terry Gou, founder and CEO of Foxconn, delivers a speech during a 2011 awards ceremony for employees at the industrial complex in Longhua township. The company recognized about 200 staffers from 26 industrial complexes in China.
Apple Inc AAPL:US 636.230 USD +2.550 +0.40%