Apple Supplier in China Pledges Big Labor Changes

The Fair Labor Association has found widespread problems — including numerous instances where Foxconn violated Chinese law and industry codes of conduct by having employees work more than 60 hours a week, sometimes for 11 or more days in a row. Responding to the critical report about its factories, Foxconn, a leading Asian company that makes electronic products for Apple, Dell, Amazon and others, has pledged to sharply curtail the number of working hours in its Chinese factories and significantly increase wages, a move that could improve working conditions across China.

The monitoring group, which in recent weeks surveyed more than 35,000 Foxconn employees and inspected three large facilities where Apple products are manufactured, also found that 43 percent of workers surveyed had experienced or witnessed accidents, and almost two-thirds said their compensation “does not meet their basic needs.” Many said that the unions available to them did “not provide true worker representation.” “There’s this lingering sense among workers that they’re in a dangerous place,” Auret van Heerden, president and chief executive of the Fair Labor Association, said in an interview. But Foxconn has “reached a tipping point. They have publicly promised to make changes in a manner that they will have to deliver on it.”