Labour issues bite Apple contractor

Apple’s manufacturing partner in China, Foxconn Technology, is coming under renewed criticism over labour practices after reports that vocational students were being compelled to work at plants making iPhones and their components.

Foxconn has acknowledged using student “interns” on manufacturing lines, but says they are free to leave at any time. But two worker advocacy groups said that they had spoken with students who said they had been forced by their teachers to assemble iPhones at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, in north-central China.

Additionally, recently Chinese state-run news media reported that several vocational schools in the city of Huai’an, in eastern China, required hundreds of students to work on assembly lines at a Foxconn plant to help ease worker shortages. According to one of the articles, Huai’an students were ordered to manufacture cables for Apple’s new iPhone 5.

“They said they are forced to work by the teachers,” Li Qiang, founder of China Labor Watch, one of the advocacy organisations and a frequent critic of Foxconn’s labour policies, said in an interview. Li said his staff had spoken with multiple workers and students who said that 10 of 87 workers on an iPhone assembly line were students.

“They don’t want to work there — they want to learn,” said Li. “But if they don’t work, they are told they will not graduate, because it is a very busy time with the new iPhone coming, and Foxconn does not have enough workers without the students.”

Foxconn, in a statement, said that students made up just 2.7 per cent of its 1.2 million-person work force in China — about 32,000 workers — 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 their internship.”

A spokesman for Apple declined to comment on the recent cases, but he said Apple’s code of conduct tells suppliers to follow local labour laws when dealing with interns and other workers.

Foxconn has come under intense scrutiny in recent months over working conditions inside factories that manufacture smartphones, tablet computers and other electronic devices for Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other technology giants.

Investigations by newspapers, outside groups and companies like Apple itself have revealed illegal amounts of overtime, crowded working conditions, under-age workers, improper disposal of hazardous waste and, in some cases, industrial accidents that have killed four people and injured more than 100 at Foxconn and other Chinese factories that supply Apple.

Earlier this year, following highly publicised reports of such problems, Apple asked an outside organisation to audit working conditions inside the plants where the bulk of iPhones, iPads and other Apple products are built. In the wake of that audit, Foxconn announced it would significantly raise wages for many of its employees and reduce overtime hours to come into compliance with Chinese law.

In August, Fair Labour Association — the group hired by Apple to audit Foxconn — said Foxconn had made progress at cutting employees’ hours and improving working conditions, but that those shifts would require Foxconn to recruit “tens of thousands of extra workers.”

The group also said that Foxconn and Apple had adopted policies to make sure that student interns knew they could resign from Foxconn and still graduate, and to link the jobs they performed inside Foxconn with their studies.

“I am concerned about these recent reports, and we’re following up,” said Auret van Heerden, president and chief executive of the Fair Labour Association, in an interview. “If there have been any breakdowns in policies, we expect changes to be made.”

“When students enroll in vocational schools, they should receive a genuine education,” said Debby Chan Sze Wan with Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, the other group that spoke to interns. “Standing in a factory, doing the same motion for 10 hours a day, this is not an education. And they are told they cannot leave, that they must work or they will be dismissed from school.”

Articles in the Chinese press reported that some schools in Huai’an were closed so that students could work in Foxconn plants, and that students said they were forced to work 12 hours a day. Some of the students are said to have come from the law and English departments.

Foxconn has strongly defended its labour practices, complaining that the company is unfairly scrutinised because it is the biggest manufacturer for Apple, the world’s best-known consumer electronics company. Analysts say labour abuses — including improper use of student labour — also occur at factories producing goods for Samsung, Nokia and other brands.

Last week, Samsung promised to improve management and conditions at some Chinese suppliers after a labour rights groups issued a report that said the suppliers were using underage workers.

No company, however, has received more attention than Foxconn. A few years ago, a rash of suicides were reported at its factories. While the suicides were a tiny fraction of its employees, labour experts began questioning what they called a militarylike atmosphere within the company.

Apple responded soon after by sending a team to China, including a delegation led by Tim Cook, now the company’s chief executive, to look into labour conditions.

Within a year, explosions at several Apple supplier factories in China highlighted the need to improve worker safety. More recently, recurring reports about how local governments and Chinese vocational schools coordinate with the company to fill worker vacancies have alarmed some labour groups.

After the recent allegations, local officials in Huai’an issued a statement ordering higher education institutions to strictly follow policies and correct any “violations.” The Huai’an government also said many vocational students had ended their work at Foxconn and returned to school.