• The Chinese Labor Watch Alleges Violations at Pegatron Factories

    by
    Akshay Masand
    Published on 2013-07-29 10:42 PM
    1 Comment Comments


    Another Apple supplier seems to be in the crosshairs of the China Labor Group, which is a New York-based labor rights watchdog that alleges wage and safety violations at multiple plants owned by iPhone and iPad partner manufacturer Pegatron. The non-profit detailed Pegatron’s alleged breach of Chinese regulations governing workplace safety, withholding of worker pay, and sub-par living conditions according to Reuters.

    According to the CLW, the company is breaching Chinese and International Labor laws, as well as Apple’s own supplier standards, at three factories in Shanghai and Suzhou. From March to July, the workers’ rights group performed an undercover investigation inside factory walls and interviewed almost 200 employees to gather information for the report. The report claimed the following:

    The Pegatron factories are violating a great number of international and Chinese laws and standards as well as the standards of Apple's own social responsibility code of conduct.
    The Wall Street Journal recently noted that CLW found the manufacturer instated workweeks that often exceeded an Apple-specified 60-hour limit, while some employees had their pay withheld for working short shifts. Apple told the publication that it knew certain labor brokers were withholding worker ID cards and demanded that Pegatron resolve the situation. Pegatron CEO, Jason Cheng, responded with the following in a prepared statement:

    We strive to make each day at Pegatron better than the last for our employees. They are the heart of our business. That's why we take these allegations very seriously.
    In addition to the alleged worker-related offense, Pegatron subsidiaries also reportedly dumped metal-cutting fluids into local sewer systems. Apple mentioned the following regarding CLW’s claims:

    Their latest report contains claims that are new to us and we will investigate them immediately. If our audits find that workers have been underpaid or denied compensation for any time they've worked, we will require that Pegatron reimburse them in full.
    For its own part, Apple said it has performed 15 comprehensive audits at various Pegatron facilities since 2007, some of which were “surprise” audits conducted within the past 18 months. The audits were a part of Apple’s Supplier Responsibility initiative, which holds both suppliers and manufacturers to a Code of Conduct for safe and ethical working conditions.

    The Cupertino California company has struggled to deal with reports of these unethical and sometimes illegal treatment of workers by its Chinese partners. This includes the recent accusations against Foxconn involving underage hiring. Recently, Apple has reportedly been looking to diversify its supply chain away from Foxconn, with Pegatron reaping the benefits. It was reported previously that the supplier would take on an additional 40,000 workers to handle production of Apple’s rumored low-cost iPhone model. Current estimates put Pegatron’s workforce to be around roughly 70,000 people. We’ll have to wait and see if Apple does anything with this recent report from CLW regarding Pegatron.

    Source: Reuters, The Wall Street Journal
    This article was originally published in forum thread: The Chinese Labor Watch Alleges Violations at Pegatron Factories started by Akshay Masand View original post
    1. Categories:
    2. Apple
    Comments 1 Comment
    1. Just Dummy's Avatar
      Just Dummy - 2013-07-30, 09:10 AM
      Keep building American designed products in third world slave factories and you'll see these kinds of things. I love my iPhone but the quality lately has been lackluster. I can't wait to get the Moto X as my backup and finally have something worthwhile built in the US.

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