apple Apple supplier says underage workers found at Chinese factory

[Asrokhel]

Foxconn says the facility not linked to its work for the U.S. company

Electronics manufacturer Foxconn said Tuesday it found underage interns as young as 14 working at one of its factories in China.

Foxconn Technology Group said the interns were found by a company investigation at its factory in the eastern city of Yantai and were sent back to their schools. China's minimum legal working age is 16.

Foxconn, owned by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is best known as the manufacturer of Apple Inc.'s iPhone but said the Yantai factory had no connection with its work for Apple.

The company said it is investigating with schools how the interns were sent to its factory. It didn't say how many underage interns it found.

"We recognize that full responsibility for these violations rests with our company and we have apologized to each of the students for our role in this action," Foxconn said in a statement.

"Any Foxconn employee found, through our investigation, to be responsible for these violations will have their employment immediately terminated."

Other clients include Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard

Foxconn produces iPhones and iPads for Apple and also assembles products for Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The company gave no indication what products were made in facilities where the interns worked.

The company said it had a policy of not commenting on its customers or their products, "however we can confirm that our Yantai facility has no association with any work we carry out on behalf of Apple."

A labour rights group, China Labor Watch, said in a statement that primary responsibility lay with the schools involved but "Foxconn is also culpable for not confirming the ages of their workers."

Conditions in factories in China are a sensitive issue for foreign companies that outsource production of shoes, consumer electronics and other goods to local contractors.

Prior complaints

Last month, Foxconn suspended production for one day at a factory in the city of Taiyuan following a brawl by as many as 2,000 employees that injured 40 people.

Foxconn is one of China's biggest employers, with about 1.2 million employees in factories in several cities. The company has an internship program that takes vocational students who work for three to six months in its factories, accompanied by teachers.

Foxconn faced a complaint in August that vocational students were compelled by their schools to work in its factories in China. Foxconn said the students were free to leave at any time.

The Fair Labor Association, which was hired by Apple to audit working conditions at Foxconn factories, said in August that improvements it recommended in March were being carried out ahead of schedule.

That included verifying the ages of student interns.

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...y-underage.html

[LaP]

In other news the sky is blue.

[Nomad_]

Apple's New Foxconn Embarrassment

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2012/09/12/apples-new-foxconn-embarrassment/

Foxconn has acknowledged it uses student interns but says they work at its plants by choice and can leave their jobs at any time. Foxconn also said in a statement related by the Times, that students make up just 2.7% of its workforces of 1.2 million, and that schools ?recruit the students under the supervision of the local government, and the schools also assign teachers to accompany and monitor the students throughout the internship.?

But the Times story paints a different picture. Two worker advocacy groups in China said they had talked to students who reported being forced by their teachers to assemble iPhones at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzho, in north-central China. Also, according to the Times, Chinese media reported last week that vocational schools in the eastern Chinese city of Huai?an required hundreds of students to work on assembly lines at a Foxconn plant to make up for worker shortages. One report said the Huai?an students were making cables for the iPhone 5.

?They said they are forced to work by the teachers,? Li Qiang, founder of the Chinese advocacy organization China Labor Watch, told the Times. Li added that the students didn?t want to work at Foxconn, but their teachers told them that if they didn?t work, they wouldn?t graduate.

[Astra.Xtreme]

This has nothing to do with Apple, but go figure... another sensationalist article looking for page hits...

Foxconn, owned by Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is best known as the manufacturer of Apple Inc.'s iPhone but said the Yantai factory had no connection with its work for Apple.

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

This has nothing to do with Apple, but go figure... another sensationalist article looking for page hits...

Sensationalist title, yes. But manufacturers are just as much to blame because they continue to use Foxconn as their supplier, despite all of the controversy. As long as manufacturers continue to use Foxconn, and we continue to buy their products, how can we possibly hope for any improvement?

[Hum]

I wondered why I found chewing gum in my iPad ...

[Growled Member]

Foxconn produces iPhones and iPads for Apple and also assembles products for Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The company gave no indication what products were made in facilities where the interns worked.

So why plaster Apple's name in the title?