Audit at Foxconn Reveals a Workweek Still Too Long
May 17, 2013
Foxconn Technology, the company that manufactures Apple’s
popular iPads and iPhones, has made substantial progress toward
improving safety and other working conditions at three of its Chinese
plants dedicated to making Apple products. But it has not yet achieved
the most difficult goal: reducing the average workweek to the maximum
allowed by Chinese law, a global monitoring group said on Thursday.
The auditors, supervised by the Fair Labor Association,
said Foxconn was still working toward lowering the average workweek to
the 49-hour cap. And labor unions at the plants that are supposed to
represent the workers’ interests are still dominated by management, the
association said.
Still, the average workweek
has come down sharply from the typical 60 hours or more that has been
common practice at the Chinese suppliers of Apple and other technology
companies.
Although the auditors
declined to be specific about the length of the Foxconn workweek, Apple
has said that it has been working to reduce the long hours put in by
workers at its suppliers, which are mostly in China.
In a statement on its supplier responsibility Web site,
the company said for more than a million workers in its global supply
network that it tracked in 2012, “the average hours worked per week was
under 50.”
An Apple spokesman, Steve
Dowling, declined to discuss the specifics of the Fair Labor Association
audit, which he said was done independently of Apple. Foxconn could not
be reached for comment on Thursday.
But Mr. Dowling said Apple
has been working closely with its suppliers and conducting its own
monitoring to improve conditions at the factories that make its
products, and the company has posted public progress reports on its Web
site.
Foxconn, part of the
Taiwan-based company Hon Hai Precision Industry, employs about 178,000
workers at the three factories inspected. It has about 1.2 million
workers at plants making products for Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell,
Microsoft and other technology companies.
Foxconn has been under intense scrutiny for several years because of working conditions inside its factories. Investigations by The New York Times,
outside groups and Apple’s own supplier responsibility officials have
found illegal amounts of overtime, crowded working conditions, under-age
workers and improper disposal of hazardous waste. Industrial accidents
have injured and killed Foxconn workers, and the company also
experienced a wave of worker suicides.
Labor and consumer
activists have pressured Apple, one of the most profitable companies in
the world, to do more to improve conditions for the people who make its
products. The monthly earnings of Foxconn workers making Apple products
are currently about $500.
Apple joined the Fair Labor
Association, or F.L.A., in January 2012, and asked the group to audit
its suppliers, beginning with Foxconn. The labor group has periodically
inspected Foxconn factories in Guanlan, Longhua and Chengdu since
February 2012 and interviewed thousands of workers. The audits are paid
for by Apple.
After the first inspection,
Apple and Foxconn agreed to an action plan of 360 items to be completed
by July 1, 2013. As of January, 98.3 percent of them had been achieved,
the group’s report said.
Most of the items were
“housekeeping issues,” said Auret van Heerden, chief executive of the
F.L.A., in an interview Thursday. “Those things they plowed through.”
But Foxconn has also
addressed more substantive problems, Mr. van Heerden said. For example,
in fire safety, the company added more escape routes and cleared choke
points after the auditors asked it to test the evacuation of buildings
during shift change, when plants are most crowded. “We were, in a way,
looking for trouble,” he said.
He noted that Foxconn has
also overhauled many processes, including using robots instead of people
to polish the aluminum backs of iPad cases and water to capture and
dispose of the resulting dust. An aluminum dust explosion in May 2011 at
Foxconn’s Chengdu factory killed three workers and injured more than a dozen others.
Critics of the F.L.A. and
Foxconn said the most recent audit played down problems found by other
investigators, such as unpaid overtime and Foxconn’s use of unpaid
interns.
“Over all, the F.L.A.’s
reporting on Foxconn continues to be unjustifiably rosy,” Scott Nova,
executive director of the Workers Rights Consortium, a university-backed
group that monitors apparel factories worldwide, said in an e-mail.
富士康被指工人周工作時長仍未降至上限
2013年05月17日
作為廣受歡迎的iPad和iPhone的製造商，富士康科
技在其下屬三家專事生產蘋果公司(Apple)產品的工廠中一直進行着安全和其他工作條件的改善工作，並已取得重大進展。但是根據一家全球監查機構周四的
報告，最困難的目標至今尚未實現，即將每周平均工作時間降至中國法律所允許的上限之下。
審核人員是在公平勞動協會(Fair Labor Association)的指導下展開工作的，他們表示，富士康還在努力將周平均工作時數降至49小時這個上限以下。協會還稱工廠的工會本應該代表工人的利益，但至今仍由工廠管理層把控着。
不過，富士康的周平均工作時數相比通常的60小時（或者更長）還是有了大幅下降——這個時長在蘋果和其他科技公司的中國供應商中是很普遍的。
審核人員拒絕透露富士康工人的具體周工作時數，但蘋果表示，它一直在努力讓其供應商的工人減少工作時數。蘋果的供應商大多在中國。
在刊登在公司官網的一份關於供應商責任的聲明中，蘋果表示，2012年對全球供應網絡的一百多萬名工人進行的跟蹤調查顯示，「每周平均工作時數不到50」。
蘋果公司發言人史蒂夫·道林(Steve Dowling)拒絕談論公平勞動協會審核報告的具體細節，他稱審核是獨立於蘋果進行的。記者本周四未能與富士康取得聯繫並獲得其看法。
但道林表示，蘋果一直在和供應商密切合作，自行開展監查工作，意在改善為其生產產品的工廠的工作條件，公司已經在其網站發佈了進度報告。
富士康隸屬於總部位於台灣的鴻海科技集團(Hon Hai
Precision
Industry)，接受審核的三家工廠共有17.8萬名工人。集團名下工廠共有120萬名工人，在為蘋果、惠普(Hewlett-Packard)、戴
爾(Dell)、微軟(Microsoft)等科技公司生產產品。
多年來，富士康因其工廠內的工作條件問題一直處在密切注視
之下。《紐約時報》、外界機構和蘋果自己的供應商責任人員在調查中都曾發現各種問題，例如加班時長違規、擁擠的工作環境、未達法定年齡的工人，以及危險廢
料的不規範處置。在富士康，工業事故曾導致工人傷亡，該公司還經歷了一系列的工人自殺事件。
勞工及消費者權益活動人士敦促蘋果公司採取更多行動，改善為其生產產品的勞動者的條件。蘋果公司是世界上最具盈利性的企業之一，目前，製造該公司產品的富士康工人的月薪約為500美元（約合人民幣3000元）。
2012年1月，蘋果加入公平勞動協會，並請求該組織審核其供應商，先從富士康入手。從2012年2月開始，該組織對觀瀾、龍華及成都的富士康工廠進行了周期性檢查，並且採訪了數以千計的工人。審核費用由蘋果支付。
自從首次考察之後，蘋果和富士康就一個含有360項事務的行動計劃達成協議，定於2013年7月1日完成。該組織的報告稱，截止今年1月，該計劃中98.3%的事項已得到執行。
周四，公平勞動協會首席執行官奧雷·范希爾登(Auret van Heerden)接受訪問時稱，這些事項多數是「家務事，通過強力推動，都得以完成」。
但是，范希爾登說，富士康也處理了一些更具實質性的問題。例如，在防火方面，公司增加了更多的安全通道，並且在審計者要求公司測試換班時段工廠內的疏散情況之後，疏通了通行不暢的地點。換班時段，工廠里最擁擠。他說，「從某種意義上來說，我們是在挑刺兒。」
他指出，富士康也改革了許多生產程序，包括使用機械人取代人力，來拋光iPad的鋁製背殼，以及用水收集並洗去該過程產生的粉塵。2011年5月，成都富士康工廠的鋁粉爆炸導致3名工人死亡，另有逾12人受傷。
批評公平勞動協會和富士康的人士稱，最近的審核淡化了其他調查者發現的問題，例如無薪加班及富士康對無薪實習生的使用。
工人權利共同體(Worker Rights Consortium)執行總監斯科特·諾瓦(Scott Nova)在一封郵件中寫道，「總體上，公平勞動協會的富士康報告繼續保持着毫無依據的樂觀。」該共同體是一個由大學支持的組織，對全球的服裝廠進行監督。
翻譯：經雷、梁英
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