Foxconn Denies Employing Underage Workers

By PCMag Staff

February 24, 2012

Foxconn on Friday issued a blistering rebuke to a non-governmental organization that alleged the contract manufacturing giant hid underage workers from inspectors during a Fair Labor Association (FLA) tour of its Chinese factories.

The FLA last week of Foxconn facilities at the request of Foxconn customer Apple, which has been the subject of media and NGO scrutiny for the labor practices of its international suppliers. The FLA's three-week tour of two Foxconn plants where iPhones and iPads are assembled will be followed by inspections of factories run by seven other Apple suppliers in China.

"We have strict recruitment regulations to ensure full compliance with worker age regulations and laws and our employee records are reviewed regularly by our own audit teams and by our customers," Foxconn said in a statement sent to PCMag. "We have sufficient access to workers who are of legal age and there is no incentive for us to break our own strict policies and Chinese law on the matter. Let us be very clear, Foxconn does not employ, in any capacity, any underage workers."

Earlier this week, Debby Sze Wan Chan, a project officer with Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), claimed that two workers from Foxconn's Zhenghou factory told the NGO that Foxconn had been "prepared for the inspection" by the FLA in advance, according to published by AppleInsider on Wednesday.

"All underage workers, between 16 and 17 years old, were not assigned any overtime work and some of them were even sent to other departments," Chan told the blog. Workers that young may be legally allowed to work in China, but Apple's own limits their hours and what sort of work they can do.

Chan also said that a worker at Foxconn's Chengdu plant told Hong Kong-based SACOM that workers were given more breaks than usual during the FLA inspection.

The allegations came a day after the airing of that presented a mixed review of working conditions and wages at the Foxconn factories where Apple's iPhones and iPads are assembled.

Foxconn also countered SACOM claims that for workers was simply a reactionary move in the face of public criticism of the company's treatment of its labor force.

"The fact that SACOM tries to find fault with the 16 percent to 25 percent compensation increase that was given to our assembly line workers in China on Feb. 1 is a clear sign that SACOM is not interested in seeing actions that bring real benefit to workers in China," Foxconn said. "As such, they do a disservice to those companies who do provide competitive wages and benefits."

"Contrary to SACOM's statements, Foxconn does not follow trends, as the largest private sector employer in China we set trends and that has been a critical element of our success in China," the company continued.

Foxconn pointed to its ability to recruit workers and high employee retention rates as evidence that workers were eager to work for the Taiwan-based consumer electronics manufacturer.

"Our high retention rate is best illustrated by the fact that over 75 percent of our assembly line workers in Shenzhen are getting base compensation of over 2200 RMB [$349/month] that is in the higher range in our new compensation schedule," Foxconn said. "The fact that the majority of our assembly line staff in this location have the tenure that qualifies them for the higher range of compensation is only possible because our employees recognize that the picture SACOM paints of our operations is not at all accurate."

Apple, Foxconn Face Backlash
Apple has encountered growing criticism of its partners' labor practices in the past several months. A recent New York Times exposé detailed press gang-like working conditions and questionable safety practices at Foxconn's factories. Before his death last year, then-CEO Steve Jobs reportedly told President Barack Obama that it would be impossible to manufacture Apple products efficiently elsewhere.

The FLA inspection tour of facilities run by Apple's partners got off to when the association's president called Foxconn's factories "first-class" and attributed a notorious string of worker suicides at the plants to "boredom" just a day after the inspection tour began.

Labor organizations FLA president Auret van Heerden's remarks "hasty," while critical Internet commenters on PCMag and elsewhere alleged that the FLA inspection was rigged from the start.

Chan told AppleInsider that previous inspections of Foxconn facilities conducted by Apple itself hadn't yielded much in the way of permanent improvements for workers.

"Most of the time, the workers are aware of the presence of Apple's representatives inside the factories," she said. "It is not the problem that Apple doesn't know the real problems at their suppliers. They know, but it is only because they do not care."

SACOM has been one of the fiercest critics of Apple and Foxconn. For instance, the NGO claimed that at Foxconn's Chengdu factory last May was "no accident" but rather the result of poor workplace safety measures.

The NGO has also targeted other Apple suppliers, like touch screen maker Wintek for exposed to harmful substances in the course of their work such as n-hexane, an agent used to clean iPhone screens.

Some of those workers on Wednesday beseeched consumers to join spearheaded by the consumer watchdog groups SumOfUs.org and Change.org. Protestors associated with the campaign recently converged on various Apple Stores, , to deliver petitions signed by about 250,000 people calling on Apple to change its partners' labor practices.

For more, see and , as well as the slideshow below.