Apple’s supplier company Pegatron which is based in China has been in news for quite sometime but for all the wrong reasons. Recently a fifteen year-old, Shi Zhaokun died in the factory. Apple said that the boy died from pneumonia and not from the factory’s working conditions. Pegatron has been the site of several workers deaths in recent months and has been under-reporting the long hours employees endure, according to China Labor Watch . Shi’s family believes the long working hours at the factory played a role in his death. On Monday, Yang Xiaosa, a cousin said that the last time his family contacted Shi, who had a slight cold but was feeling better and was taking medicines. A week later, Shi was found looking severely ill at the factory’s cafeteria, and was taken to a hospital, where he died. Yang said, “We wanted him to take a day off, but he said it would not be easy to.”
According to China laws, China enacts a 44-hour normal working week and a maximum of 48 hours of work per week. But in reality the law is rarely, if ever, enforced. Most people in China work much more than 44 hours per week, and when they work on weekends or on national holidays, they typically don’t get any overtime payment. Shi had worked 280 hours in the month before his death ( whereas 192 hours is the monthly maximum work time limit) , according to China Labor Watch. The family is demanding the factory to explain what led him to contract his illness. In a statement, Apple said: “Last month we sent independent medical experts from the US and China to conduct an investigation of the [Pegatron] factory. While they have found no evidence of any link to working conditions there, we realize that is of little comfort to the families who have lost their loved ones.” It added: “Apple has a long-standing commitment to providing a safe and healthy workplace for every worker in our supply chain, and we have a team working with Pegatron at their facility to ensure that conditions meet our high standards.” Pegatron spokesman Charles Lin said that Shi Zakoun had used his 21-year-old cousin’s identification to apply for the job, and so the factory didn’t know he was underage. Lin said three other employee deaths this year, in March and April, were caused by various medical conditions unrelated to work at the factory.
Amidst all this controversy Apple received a good news over its Chinese suppliers on 12th December when the Fair Labor Association released a report saying that working hours at Foxconn, a major supplier which makes iPhones and iPads, now comply with its standard 60 hours per week – although it hadn’t met a target on compliance with the Chinese legal limit of 36 hours’ overtime per employee per month. Over several occasions Foxconn had been alleged of poor working conditions. News reports highlight the long working hours, discrimination against mainland Chinese workers by their Taiwanese co-workers, and lack of working relationships at the company. Zhang Tingzhen, 26, survived an electric shock and fall at a Foxconn plant in the southern China of Shenzhen on October 2011, Reuters reported. Half of his brain was amputated resulting in memory loss and now he can neither speak, walk or go to the bathroom properly. He was threatened that his medical support will get canceled, as company had asked to discharge him from the hospital and come to the company because Zhang is required by law to get a disability assessment. In a later statement to The Huffington Post, the company wrote that it was providing medical and financial assistance to Zhang beyond what is required by law, and that it recently received government approval to have Zhang’s assessment done in Shenzhen.
Foxconn provided the following statement to The Huffington Post: Foxconn has been working closely with the labor union to ensure that all necessary support and care is provided to our employee, Mr. Zhang Tingzhen, who was injured in an industrial accident at our Longhua facility on October 26, 2011 and who has been undergoing treatment at a hospital in Shenzhen. This includes payment for all medical expenses since his injury, a continued payment of his monthly salary, as well as a monthly subsidy to support his family’s living expenses. After this issue got sorted out yet another problem emerged. There seems to be an ongoing suicide problem. Wired reported that 17 Foxconn workers in China killed themselves between 2007 and 2011 — a development that helped push through a labor-reform agreement between Apple and Foxconn in March 2012. The death rate has fallen down comparatively low since 2010. In 2012, only 1 suicide was reported whereas in 2013, 2 suicides have been reported till now.
Currently strict measures are being taken by Fair Labor Association and Apple is trying to scrutinize the problem. They are doing their best to come with a solution and eliminate the death rates in their supplier companies based in China.