A report detailing various workers’ rights violations at major electronics and Apple supplier Foxconn’s Chinese factories was released Thursday afternoon by the Fair Labor Association, a labor monitoring group Apple joined in January and to which it pays membership dues.
The report, commissioned by Apple and touted as independent, was based on month-long surveys of workers conducted at three Foxconn factories. It found that working hours at all three “exceeded both the FLA Code standard of 60 hours per week (regular plus overtime) and the Chinese legal limits of 40 hours per week and 36 hours maximum overtime per month. During peak production periods, the average number of hours worked per week exceeded 60 hours per worker.”
Further, “FLA also discovered that 14 percent of workers may not receive fair compensation for unscheduled overtime,” and 64 percent of employees say that compensation does not meet their basic needs.
FLA’s survey found 43 percent of workers said they had experienced or witnessed an accident at the factories, and uncovered “other serious issues in areas such as health and safety, worker integration and communication, treatment of interns, and China’s social security enrollment, among others.”
FLA’s CEO Auret van Heerden said that “Apple and its supplier Foxconn have agreed to our prescriptions, and we will verify progress and report publicly.”
