Techno Crime: Independent Auditors Visit Abusive Factory
After the world wide protests against the Apple Company, an independent labor rights organization called “Fair Labor Association” has started inspecting the Foxconn plant in China.
For those who do not know this occurrence, here’s a brief review: a group of protesters and advocates of human rights had discovered that the Chinese workers in Foxconn are not being treated humanly, so they started a global movement that petitions the fair treatment in the said facility—Foxconn is where Apple Company make their iPhones, iPads and other advanced technologies.
The audit group of Fair Labor Association arrived to Shenzhen, China this week to inspect the said factory. They plan to interview the employees to tell their side of stories. Aside from these, of course the said team will also scrutinize the working condition there. Their findings will be published in their website http://www.fairlabor.org/ Although, Apple is not the only comapny whom the Foxconn served, actually there are other equally big firms, but since Steve Jobs’ creation is the most popular, it shares the biggest spotlight of the blame.
The said factory captured the attention of the global media when some workers committed suicides in 2010. This incident started the speculation that the workers there are not being treated well. Actually, this is not the only incidence. Last month, the New York Times published a story which exposed an explosion in Foxconn that murdered numerous employees.
Actually, Apple Company had already made their rounds in the said facilities in 2006 and had published their findings on their websites that year. They in fact found out about some violations. Here are some of the said contraventions:
- employing underage workers
- excessive work hours
- failure to pay the overtime wages
According to some press releases, the company makes use of women as men—they give them heavy and not easy to bear jobs. According to some commentary, they treat them like animals. To add fuel to the fire, a report said that some of them are being paid less than $1 an hour.
The audit team of Fair Labor Association is set to go from one Foxconn factory to another to make all these things straight right.
Reference:
Pepitone, J. (2012). Fair Labor Group Begins Apple Supplier Inspections. Retrieved on February 14, 2012, from http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/13/technology/apple_foxconn_audit/index.htm?iid=SF_T_River
Image Sources:
Foxconn Pardubice by Nadkachna, available under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Electronics Factory in Shenzhen by Steve Jurvetson, available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
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