I would love to be reporting this as an extremely atypical event but, unfortunately, we all know that this is not the case: again, the watchdog group in the Chinese industry China Labor Watch presented a report accusing a factory in the country of inhumane working conditions and violation of a series of labor rights.
Again, the offender Pegatron, one of Foxconn's biggest suppliers of iPhone parts and components to Apple. The labor rights group analyzed wage receipts from workers at a company factory in Shanghai and reported on a number of problems, such as forced and illegal overtime, wages for full-time jobs below the amount set by the country and lack of adequate protection in some functions.
In addition, China Labor Watch accuses Pegatron of not limiting the amount of overtime worked by employees, which is mandatory under Chinese law an employee has gone to the extreme of doing 109 more hours on the job, working an absurd 293 hours in a month ( which gives 9.7 hours a day, including weekends), and not paying overtime to employees who were asked to arrive early on the production lines.
The average hourly wage for Pegatron employees was $ 1.85 in 2015 and has risen to $ 2.00 this year with deductions, however, this figure drops to $ 1.60. Many Chinese workers need to do a large number of monthly overtime hours to even complete a basic survival income.
Along with serious accusations regarding Foxconn, it is clear that the situation of Chinese workers is not good. Ma admits that there is excess overtime at the Pegatron factory, but says the percentage is lower than the one published by the report.
Now, as they say: if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Obviously, at first Apple does not have much to do in terms of practical solutions to solve the overexploitation of the Chinese who build our iPhones. However, for a company that prides itself on being a pioneer in a number of ways, this is an uncomfortable spectrum hovering constantly in its head. Who knows, one day the Apple of the technological revolution may not be the Apple of the labor rights revolution in China?
It doesn't hurt to dream, no.
(via The Loop)
