Today I stumbled upon this article, that described the conditions for workers at the Iphone supplier Pegatron, which currently is responsible for around 50 % of the Iphone production according to this article.
If what they state is true, then all the promises from Apple after the allegations against Foxconn seem to have been disappointing by now.
- No single day off for 2.5 months: Workers work up to 10 weeks without any rest day during peak season and they often work for 12-15 hours a day and sometimes up to 17-18 hours;
- No protective equipment: Workers in hazardous positions are not provided with adequate and effective protective measures. There are cases of worker fainting in the production lines;
- Illegal charges for health checks: Workers have to pay their own health checks during recruitment which should be paid by employer;
- Difficult resignation: If workers would like to resign, they have to wait for a long time in order to get the approval which push them to leave without official documentation and losing at least 15 days of wages; and
- High Proportion of Dispatch workers: who form the majority in the workforce which violates the regulation that dispatch workers should not exceed 10 percent of the total workforce. Pegatron avoids regular employment benefits such as social insurance and potential legal responsibility if there is any labour dispute by hiring large amount of dispatch workers.
It would be interesting to see if any of these problems appear at Guohong as well, but what stickst to me is that it seems like Apple broke all itās promises of fairer treatment for workers and more checks with their production partners once again. These findings are especially interesting for me, as I often tend to get in discussions with people about that who try to convince me over how āfairā Apple and Foxconn treat their workers. If what the article states is true, then Apple just handed over a major part of their production to a less known supplier with an even worse history of worker treatment.
So what do you think? Is this information credible? What are the implications of this?