Night shifts follow a similar pattern with demand for the iPad2 outstripping supply in many countries, this is a round-the-clock operation. Shifts, including overtime and breaks, end at 8.30pm. It is a loss of dignity and means an extra pressure for the worker."Ī typical working day in Chengdu means getting up at 6.30am, catching a bus for the 30-minute ride to the factory at 7.10am and attending a compulsory – but unpaid – assembly at 8.10am, before starting work at 8.30am.
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"Sometimes you have to stand like a soldier in front of everybody. "When a worker makes a mistake, when he talks or laughs loudly, he will be humiliated," a production worker said. Workers who step out of line can be publicly humiliated, it is alleged. Foxconn, a Fortune 500 company, does not deny it breaks the overtime laws, but claims that all overtime is voluntary. During work, some employees claimed they were forbidden to speak to each other and some were forced to stand for hours without a break. When they do get a day off, they spend much of it catching up on sleep. Others said that if they missed targets, they had to work through their lunch breaks to make up for it. The rule that employees should have one day off in seven is often flouted, some claimed.
Why work for apple company code#
One worker produced a payslip showing 98 hours of extra time in a single month – nearly three times the legal maximum and in breach of Apple's own code of conduct. At Chengdu it was claimed that anything between 60 and 80 hours of overtime a month was normal. Many workers interviewed claimed that they were regularly required to work far in excess of the 36 hours of overtime per month that Chinese law – and therefore international labour law – permits. I will never blow my hair inside my room. One worker who did was forced to write a confession letter: "It is my fault. Up to 24 people can share one room and the rules are strict, even prohibiting the use of a kettle or a hairdryer. The dormitories where she and most others live offer little comfort. Like her, many Foxconn workers manage to go home only once a year.įor the first few days at the factory, Li said that she and her colleagues – most seem to be aged 18-20 – were put through military drills by former soldiers: "They made us do marching and standing still and walking. But Li claims that her experience has been one of illegally long hours and draconian rules for a basic daily wage of as little as £5.20.
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Its supplier code of conduct demands that employees in its supply chain are treated with respect and dignity. She was attracted, like many of her colleagues, by government adverts promising work and good pay.Īpple is publicly committed to good employment practice. Li (not her real name) arrived a few months ago to join the rapidly growing workforce at the newest factory opened by Foxconn, which is Apple's major supplier.
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"It's difficult to adapt to this work and hard to be away from your family."
"Sometimes my roommates cry when they arrive in the dormitory after a long day," one 19-year-old girl told investigators. The interviews they recently conducted in Shenzhen and Chengdu, which have been passed to the Observer, are sometimes heartrending. The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations and the human rights group Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom) have a track record in investigating the human cost of China's economic boom. Interviews with mainly migrant employees and managers have laid bare the dark side of those profits: a Dickensian world of work that would be considered shocking in the west. In Shenzhen and Chengdu a joint Foxconn workforce of 500,000 is providing the labour that, in the first quarter of 2011, contributed to Apple Inc net profit of $6bn (£3.6bn). But an investigation by two NGOs reveals that many workers making iPhones and iPads for eager world markets are exploited and living a dismal life. One year on, swaths of anti-suicide netting surround the huge worker dormitories in Shenzhen. Nine Chinese sociologists wrote an open letter to the media calling for an end to regimented and restrictive work practices which they condemned as "a model where fundamental human dignity is sacrificed for development". Last May, seven young Chinese workers producing Apple iPads for consumers across the globe took their own lives, prompting an investigation into working conditions at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, southern China. The spate of suicides made headlines around the world.