Pegatron Corp (和碩) shares closed lower yesterday after a labor watchdog on Thursday said that workers continue to suffer poor conditions at the company’s factory in China.
An undercover report by China Labor Watch (CLW) on the Shanghai iPhone factory operated by Pegatron said workers were living in overcrowded dormitories lined with mold and crawling with bed bugs.
While the broader market rebounded in the wake of a strong showing on Wall Street overnight, Pegatron shares fell following the labor report and amid a cautious outlook on sales of the new iPhone models due to slowing global smartphone demand, dealers said.
Pegatron shares dropped 1.1 percent to close at NT$81.1 in Taipei trading, while the TAIEX was up 0.76 percent.
“Low pay, long hours, unpaid work, poor workplace safety and despicable living conditions persist,” New York-based CLW said in the report, alleging there were nearly two dozen “legal and ethical labor rights violations.”
While Apple Inc has pledged to improve conditions at contractors producing its gadgets, the report said its investigation showed ongoing problems since a 2013 report on three Chinese factories operated by Pegatron.
“Before overtime pay, workers making the iPhone earn only the local minimum wage of US$318 per month, or about US$1.85 per hour. This is not a living wage,” the report said. “After their long shifts, workers take a 30-minute shuttle bus back to their dorms, where up to 14 people are crammed into a room. Mold grows pervasively along the walls. Bed bugs have spread throughout the dorm and many workers are covered in red bug bites.”
The report said health and safety were major concerns because the facility uses a number of toxic substances, including mercury and arsenic, but that “no one tells workers anything about the location of these or other substances in the production process or how a person should protect herself from injury.”
The report cited a total of 23 violations, including lack of training and inadequate safety equipment.
“Unfortunately, the awful working and living conditions that Pegatron workers face in 2015 are generally no better than those witnessed in 2013,” the report said.
CLW cited “limited improvement” in some areas, saying the average working week has dropped from 63 hours to 60 hours, but it noted that half of the workers hired at Pegatron are temporary, even though Chinese law allows only 10 percent of a workforce to be temporary labor.
In response to the CLW report, Pegatron said it has launched an internal investigation to review the working conditions at its Chinese factories.
The company said that since CLW’s investigation of the working conditions at its Chinese factories two years ago, many improvements have been made.
Pegatron reported good sales for the third quarter due to the launch of the new iPhones, posting NT$308.67 billion (US$9.49 billion) in consolidated sales, up 41.6 percent from the previous quarter and 30.4 percent from the previous year.
However, foreign institutional investors have been on the sell side of the stock this week due to worries over iPhone sales, dealers said.
Additional reporting by CNA
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS