14 DAY TRIAL // The Fair Labor Association, which Apple joined in January as the first company to allow the group to audit its partners, has published its findings of an independent investigation on Foxconn, Apple’s manufacturer of iPhones, iPads, and other devices.
The FLA is a coalition of universities, non-profit organizations and businesses committed to improving the health, safety, fair treatment and respect of workers worldwide.
The association issued a report this week to inform that a thorough, independent investigation has churned up “significant issues with working conditions at three factories in China operated by Apple’s major supplier Foxconn.”
During the course of a month, the FLA claims to have found excessive overtime and problems with overtime compensation. Several health and safety risks were discovered, and the FLA found “crucial communication gaps” causing “widespread sense of unsafe working conditions among workers.”
After analyzing these problems as a whole, the FLA decided it would secure commitments to “reduce working hours to legal limits while protecting pay, improve health and safety conditions, establish a genuine voice for workers, and will monitor on an ongoing basis to verify compliance.”
Auret van Heerden, president and CEO of the Fair Labor Association, said they gave Apple’s largest supplier “the equivalent of a full-body scan through 3,000 staff hours investigating three of its factories and surveying more than 35,000 workers. Apple and its supplier Foxconn have agreed to our prescriptions, and we will verify progress and report publicly.”
Some actual figures were dished out in the report as well:
FLA’s investigation found that:
· Within the last 12 months, all three factories exceeded both the FLA Code standard of 60 hours per week (regular plus overtime) and the Chinese legal limits of 40 hours per week and 36 hours maximum overtime per month.
· During peak production periods, the average number of hours worked per week exceeded 60 hours per worker.
· There were periods in which some employees worked more than seven days in a row without the required 24 hours off.
Starting now, employees will work fewer hours, and Foxconn has agreed to develop a compensation package that protects workers from losing income due to reduced overtime.
Foxconn has promised to significantly increase its workforce. The electronics giant will build additional housing and canteen capacity aiming to maintain yields while reducing workers’ hours.