Foxconn, a Taiwanese-invested manufacturer of Apple's popular music player iPod, has admitted that workers at its plants China work about 80 extra hours each month, according to China CSR, a website monitoring corporate social responsibility in China.
According to Chinese Labour Law, a company breaks the law if it asks its employees to work more than 36 hours of overtime each month. Article 41 of the PRC Labour Law reads: "In special circumstances that requires extension of working hours, the overtime working shall not exceed three hours a day and 36 hours per month under the conditions of ensuring the health of the workers."
Foxconn is the registered trade name for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., according to the company's official website.
Li Zong, a spokesman of Foxconn, said Foxconn's complicated salary structure "has caused misunderstanding among the media, and the company has paid the workers according to the minimum salary standards of the Shenzhen local government," according to the China CSR report.
Apple has sent a special team to investigate, but has found no problem with the Foxconn factory, Li was quoted as saying.
According to a report published in British newspaper Mail on Sunday on 11 June, Foxconn employs 200,000 workers at its factory in Longhua, Guangdong Province. The report said the workers, mostly women, live in dormitories prohibiting visitors and are required to work 15 hours a day earning only £27 or US$50 a month,
Source: China CSR (26 June 2006)
27 June 2006
See related report: iPod supplier factories in China operate in "slave" conditions, British newspaper reports