Apple Inc found that its main supplier in Asia has been employing high-school students working illegal overtime to assemble the iPhone X.
Interns at a factory operated by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), part of Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), worked voluntarily and received benefits, though worked longer days than Chinese law permits, Apple said in a statement.
The Financial Times had reported on Tuesday that a group of 3,000 students from the Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School were sent to work at the local facility.
“During the course of a recent audit, we discovered instances of student interns working overtime at a supplier facility in China,” Apple said. “When we found that some students were allowed to work overtime, we took prompt action.”
The students worked at the factory as part of a three-month stint that was billed as “work experience,” and was required to graduate, the newspaper reported.
Six students told the paper they routinely worked 11-hour days assembling Apple’s flagship smartphone, which constitutes illegal overtime for student interns under Chinese law.
Apple’s supply chain has faced criticism over poor labor standards for years, and the company has pushed manufacturing partners to improve factory conditions or risk losing business.
However, this year the firm released two new iPhones for the first time, putting extra pressure on its suppliers and assemblers to churn out millions of handsets ahead of the key holiday shopping season.
“Ultimately it’s about production needs. From Apple’s actions, it seems like they don’t care about the labor standards they set previously,” said Li Qiang (李強), founder of New York-based advocacy group China Labor Watch, which monitors working conditions in Apple’s supply chain.
“Apple actually knew about this a couple of weeks ago, however they haven’t resolved the issue yet,” Li said. “They could have stopped these students working night shifts and long hours sooner, but they didn’t do that.”
Apple’s latest model, the US$999 iPhone X, faced hiccups in production that stymied some suppliers and held back business for Hon Hai, which gets more than half its sales from the Cupertino, California-based company.
Hon Hai is the exclusive assembler of the iPhone X and Apple did not start selling its marquee device until this month, almost two months after the iPhone 8 hit the shelves.
Foxconn said company policy does not allow interns, who represent a “very small’’ percentage of its workforce, to work more than 40 hours a week on “program-related assignments.”
However, it did acknowledge that a “number of cases where portions of our campuses have not adhered to this policy. We have investigated all of these cases and confirmed that while all work was voluntary and compensated appropriately, the interns did work overtime in violation of our policy.”
Foxconn said it has taken action to correct the situation and will review the internship program to ensure that it’s in compliance and that the event “will not be repeated.”
Apple said that the student overtime was voluntary, but that it should not have been permitted.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last