“Workers at Apple partner Foxconn have alleged that their employer transferred underage employees to other departments or did not schedule them to work overtime in order to avoid discovery during recent inspections by the Fair Labor Association, according to one non-governmental organization,” Josh Ong reports for AppleInsider.
“Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) project officer Debby Sze Wan Chan relayed the claims in a recent interview with AppleInsider,” Ong reports. “SACOM is a Hong Kong-based NGO that was formed in 2005 and has been researching labor rights violations in the electronics industry since 2007.”
Ong reports, “Chan said she had heard from two Foxconn workers in Zhenghou last week that the manufacturer was ‘prepared for the inspection’ by the Fair Labor Association that had been commissioned by Apple and began last week. ‘All underage workers, between 16-17 years old, were not assigned any overtime work and some of them were even sent to other departments,’ Chan reported the workers as having said… Apple’s supplier code of conduct allows for workers between 16 and 18 years old if they are legally allowed to work, but it requires special protections for those workers that limit how much and what kinds of work they are allowed to perform.”
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple’s supplier code of conduct allows for workers between 16 and 18 years old, then they are not “underage employees.” If such workers “were not assigned any overtime work” and “even sent to other departments,” then Foxconn looks to be adhering to Apple’s supplier code of conduct, not flouting it.
We now conclude our brief logic interlude and return you to the regularly scheduled anti-Apple FUD.
Full article here.
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