MOUNT PLEASANT, WI — As the Foxconn electronics plant rises from the ground in Mount Pleasant, a leading labor rights group in China says the company has run afoul of numerous labor laws.
According to China Labor Watch, which claims to monitor the working conditions at several Foxconn plants, Foxconn has relied too much on temporary workers and has had workers put in too many overtime hours.
These observations, the group says, took place at its Zhengzhou plant in China – considered the largest iPhone factory in the world.
According to the report:
In 2018, dispatch (temporary) workers made up 55 percent of the workforce. Chinese labor law stipulates that dispatch workers must not exceed 10 percent of the workforce. In August 2019, around 50% of the workforce were dispatch workers.
Chinese labor law mandates that workers must not work more than 36 overtime hours a month. However, during the peak production seasons, workers at Zhengzhou Foxconn put in at least 100 overtime hours a month. There have been periods where workers have one rest day for every 13 days worked or even have only one rest day for a month.
You can read the full report here.
Foxconn responded to the group’s claims this week, issuing a statement to CNBC:
“We can confirm that a recent review of our operations at our facility in Zhengzhou did identify some workforce compliance issues. As soon as we received the results of that review, we immediately began a detailed process to ensure that all issues were addressed. At no time did we find any evidence of forced labor and we can confirm that this facility currently has no interns working overtime … we did find evidence that the use of dispatch workers and the number of hours of overtime work carried out by employees, which we have confirmed was always voluntary, was not consistent with company guidelines”
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