Foxconn

Business
April 27, 2012
by

Brazilian Foxconn workers threaten strike over working conditions

By on April 27, 2012 at 1:47 PM.

Brazilian Foxconn workers threaten strike over working conditions

Factory workers at one of Foxconn’s Brazilian plants are complaining of overcrowded buses, poor food and a lack of water. Unless the issues are resolved by May 3, they are planning to strike, Tech Guru reported on Thursday. Workers reportedly met last Monday to voice their concerns and have given the company 10 days to address them or else over 2,500 employees will strike. Foxconn recently hired more than a thousand workers, however the company did not increase its transport infrastructure, and was also forced to hire water trucks due to the lack of water in the factory. A representative for the employees expressed optimism that a solution would be reached without resorting to a strike. More →

No Comments
Tablets
April 12, 2012
by

An inside look at how iPads are made [video]

By on April 12, 2012 at 9:30 AM.

An inside look at how iPads are made [video]

Apple’s iPad and the conditions under which it is built are topics that surface regularly on technology blogs and in the mainstream media. While the company did recently initiate a review by the Fair Labor Association, human rights organizations regularly take Apple to task for not doing more to ensure factory workers employed by its China-based manufacturing partner Foxconn are treated well. Foxconn and parent company Hon Hai employs hundreds of thousands of workers, however, and hundreds more travel from around the country each day to line up and apply for jobs at Foxconn’s various plants. Marketplace Shanghai bureau chief Rob Schmitz was recently given a rare opportunity at operations within Foxconn’s Shenzhen iPad factory, and his crew was permitted to film a number of active stations on the iPad assembly line that have never been seen before. The result is an inside look at some of the fascinating technology that goes into building the world’s most popular tablet. Marketplace’s video follows below. More →

No Comments
Business
March 30, 2012
by

Foxconn workers react to reduced hours, same pay

By on March 30, 2012 at 12:20 PM.

Foxconn workers react to reduced hours, same pay

In response to one of the largest investigations ever conducted of a U.S. company’s foreign partners, Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has agreed to hire tens of thousands of new workers, eliminate illegal overtime, improve safety condition and upgrade workers’ housing and other amenities, Reuters reported on Friday. After probing three Foxconn plants and interviewing over 35,000 workers, the Fair Labor Association reported that it found serious violations of Chinese labor laws, such as illegal and unpaid overtime, and extreme hours. Foxconn plans to reduce workers’ hours to 49 per week, which includes overtime, and it does not plan to raise salaries. The company will also hire additional workers and build more housing and canteens to combat overcrowding. While some of the company’s efforts have been praised, the changes have received mixed reactions from Foxconn’s employees. Read on for more. More →

No Comments
Breaking
March 29, 2012
by

FLA finds serious labor law violations at Foxconn

By on March 29, 2012 at 4:05 PM.

FLA finds serious labor law violations at Foxconn

The Fair Labor Association on Thursday reported that it found serious violations of Chinese labor laws during its inspections of Foxconn’s electronics manufacturing plants in various cities across China. The inspections, which were prompted by Apple after the company became the focus of renewed public outcry over the poor working conditions in plants that manufacture its iPad, iPhone and other devices, found that safety violations and illegal overtime were among the biggest issues at Focxonn’s facilities. ”Apple and Foxconn are obviously the two biggest players in this sector and since they’re teaming up to drive this change, I really do think they set the bar for the rest of the sector,” FLA President Auret van Heerden told Reuters. Foxconn responded by saying it would hire tens of thousands of new workers, take a more proactive role in preventing employees from working illegal overtime and improve safety protocols in its factories. More →

No Comments
Business
March 29, 2012
by

New Apple CEO goes where Steve Jobs would not

By on March 29, 2012 at 9:10 AM.

New Apple CEO goes where Steve Jobs would not

Steve Jobs took particular care to ensure the company he created continued to operate at the high levels he demanded after he left. Thanks to the processes he put in place, the procedures he pined over and the products he helped mastermind, Apple’s last quarter was the biggest ever among technology companies, and Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world. But current Apple CEO Tim Cook has brought change to the company he now runs, and how that will affect Apple in the long term remains to be seen. As Cook continues to separate himself from his predecessor in a number of ways, the executive visited China recently to put himself on the front lines of Foxconn’s new iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, China, which will employ 120,000 people according to Bloomberg. Foxconn’s facilities recently underwent an Apple-prompted series of inspections by the Fair Labor Association, which is expected to release a report on its findings soon. Another image of Cook at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory follows below. More →

No Comments
Business
March 27, 2012
by

Sharp and Foxconn enter into manufacturing partnership

By on March 27, 2012 at 5:15 PM.

Sharp and Foxconn enter into manufacturing partnership

Sharp on Tuesday announced that is has entered into an manufacturing partnership with Foxconn that will see the manufacturing giant take a 10% stake in the Japanese electronics company. Hon Hai has invested nearly 67 billion yen ($809 million) in Sharp in exchange for roughly 121.65 million new shares, which will be spread out between four Foxconn companies. Sharp CEO Takashi Okuda said, “Until now we have handled all of our R&D and manufacturing, but going forward we will need to include partnerships in our approach,” pledging to leverage both companies’ strengths to get products to market efficiently. Each company will hold a 46.5% stake in Sharp’s Sakai plant in western Japan, with the remaining 7% owned by Sony. More →

No Comments
Business
March 12, 2012
by

Pegatron workers say they were ignored after iPad plant explosion

By on March 12, 2012 at 5:00 PM.

Pegatron workers say they were ignored after iPad plant explosion

A report on Monday from NPR has provided new insights into an explosion that injured 59 workers in an iPad plant last December. The incident occurred at a plant run by Pegatron subsidiary Riteng Computer Accessory Company, which manufactures back panel parts for Apple’s iPad tablet, among other products. Last week, NPR met with 25 workers who were hospitalized from the blast, all of whom criticized the plant’s safety and said Apple had inspected it just hours before the explosion. “I saw a fireball coming towards me,” said He Wenwen, an employee who was calibrating his aluminum polishing machine when the explosion hit. “I lost consciousness for a few seconds. Later, when I opened my eyes, I saw dense smoke and fire everywhere. I felt scared, really scared. I could hear people crying and screaming.” Read on for more. More →

No Comments
Business
February 23, 2012
by

Apple and Foxconn respond to ABC’s iPad factory expose

By on February 23, 2012 at 12:40 PM.

Apple and Foxconn respond to ABC’s iPad factory expose

Apple and Foxconn have each responded to various claims made in ABC’s Nightline segment that took a look inside two Foxconn factories in an effort to shed light on their working conditions. Responding to a comment made by one worker who claimed she carves aluminum shavings from 6,000 iPad cases each day, Apple said this was likely the result of a miscommunication. “In manufacturing parlance this is called deburring. Her line processes 3,000 units per shift, with two shifts per day for a total of 6,000. A single operator at Ms. Zhou’s station would deburr 3,000 iPads in a shift,” Apple told ABC. Read on for more. More →

2 Comments
Business
February 23, 2012
by

Protestors to deliver poisoned iPhone factory workers’ letter to Apple shareholder meeting

By on February 23, 2012 at 10:40 AM.

Protestors to deliver poisoned iPhone factory workers’ letter to Apple shareholder meeting

SumOfUs, the organization behind the Ethical iPhone campaign, plans to deliver new petitions to Apple during its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. Along with the petitions, the group plans to hand over a copy of a letter it distributed on Wednesday written by two factory workers who were allegedly poisoned while assembling iPhone displays. “Apple has a moral obligation to fully compensate workers like Guo Rui-Qiang and Jia Jing-Chuan and to take the hard steps required make sure that tragedies like this never happen again,” SumOfUs Executive Director Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman said in a statement. “Ethical consumers won’t be fooled by whitewashing by organizations like the Fair Labor Association. We insist that Apple grant truly independent NGOs full access to its factories to truly independent NGOs, not groups funded and controlled by the corporations they’re supposed to monitor.” SumOfUs’s press release follows below. More →

4 Comments
Featured
February 22, 2012
by

Poisoned iPhone factory workers beg for reform in open letter

By on February 22, 2012 at 2:40 PM.

Poisoned iPhone factory workers beg for reform in open letter

A pair of workers who claim to have been poisoned by toxins in a Suzhou, China factory while assembling touchscreens for Apple’s iPhone have written an open letter begging consumers to demand reform. SumOfUs, the organization behind the Ethical iPhone Campaign, released the letter in an email to the media on Wednesday afternoon. The letter was written by Guo Rui-qiang and Jia Jing-chuan, two former factory workers who urge consumers to sign SumOfUs’s petition and demand that Apple force its suppliers and manufacturing partners to improve working conditions at their Chinese factories. Both workers claim to have been poisoned by a chemical cleaner called N-hexane, and they have suffered neurological damage as a result. The Fair Labor Association is currently conduction inspections of two Foxconn factories, prompted by Apple, and while only preliminary inspections have been made at this point, the organization says it has already found “tons of issues.” The workers’ letter follows below in its entirety. More →

9 Comments
Business
February 22, 2012
by

Foxconn accused of hiding underage factory workers before FLA inspection

By on February 22, 2012 at 8:50 AM.

Foxconn accused of hiding underage factory workers before FLA inspection

Foxconn workers claim the manufacturer transferred underage employees to other departments or did not schedule them to work overtime in an effort to avoid discovery during the Fair Labor Association’s investigation of its facilities, reports AppleInsider. Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) project officer Debby Sze Wan Chan was told by two Foxconn employees that the manufacturer “prepared for the inspection” by hiding the child laborers. “All underage workers, between 16-17 years old, were not assigned any overtime work and some of them were even sent to other departments,” Chan reportedly said. Another Foxconn worker said she had recently been allowed three breaks a day during the audit, an increase from one. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the company “cares about every worker in our supply chain,” however many workers don’t feel the care that the CEO talks about. “Most of the time, the workers are aware of the presence of Apple’s representatives inside the factories,” said Chan. “It is not the problem that Apple doesn’t know the real problems at their suppliers. They know, but it is only because they do not care.” More →

1 Comment
Business
February 20, 2012
by

ABC looks inside Foxconn during ‘a trip to the iFactory’ [video]

By on February 20, 2012 at 10:00 AM.

ABC looks inside Foxconn during ‘a trip to the iFactory’ [video]

ABC recently became the latest news organization to be given a look inside consumer electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn’s facilities in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China, and the Nightline special that resulted from the trip will air on Tuesday. In the meantime, ABC News has posted a 90-second teaser video containing footage from reporter Bill Weir’s trip to China. Apple, of course, is the only Foxconn partner mentioned in the preview so we can expect the forthcoming report to focus on the Cupertino-based company’s wares, but the teaser promises a never-before-seen look at Foxconn’s facilities so it could be an eye-opening segment. Foxconn and its premier partner Apple have once again taken center stage in a human rights debate that recently saw protesters deliver a petition to Apple’s Grand Central Terminal store demanding the technology giant play a more active role in improving working conditions in the Chinese factories that assemble its hardware. ABC’s teaser video follows after the break. More →

1 Comment
mobile
February 17, 2012
by

Apple device manufacturer Foxconn increases wages for workers

By on February 17, 2012 at 10:10 PM.

Apple device manufacturer Foxconn increases wages for workers

Foxconn confirmed on Friday that it has raised wages for its factory workers by 16% to 25%, Reuters reports. The original device manufacturer, which is the No.1 maker of Apple’s iPhones and iPads, has raised wages to 1,800 yuan ($285) per month and may again raise them above 2,200 yuan ($349) for workers who pass a technical examination. In comparison, pay three years ago was 900 yuan ($143) per month. “As a top manufacturing company in China, the basic salary of junior workers in all of Foxconn’s China factories is already far higher than the minimum wage set by all local governments,” the company said in a statement. Foxconn has come under fire on numerous occasions due to allegations of poor working conditions, however the company is working to improve. “We will provide more training opportunities and learning time, and will continuously enhance technology, efficiency and salary, so as to set a good example for the Chinese manufacturing industry,” a company spokesperson said. Foxconn’s announcement comes on the heel of the Fair Labor Association’s preliminary assessment of the company’s plants, which are said to have conditions that are better than most.

More →

5 Comments