labor practices

Group says it found child workers at Samsung supplier factory

Update, December 15 at 9:10 a.m.: Samsung posted an announcement Saturday, saying the workers in question were of legal age. See the note at the bottom of this story.

A labor rights group said it has uncovered evidence that a Samsung supplier employs underage workers, among other abuses.

China Labor Watch today said that an HTNS Shenzhen Co. factory that assembles Samsung cell phones employed at least three girls under the age of 16. The group noted that the discovery came just two weeks after Samsung said it didn't find any child workers while auditing this factory … Read more

Fair Labor Association too easy on Apple, Foxconn, study says

A nonprofit organization criticized the Fair Labor Association's review of Apple's largest supplier in China, saying consumer demand for the iPhone 5 has unraveled any potential improvements in working conditions at the Chinese factories.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI), an economic policy think tank focused on the needs of low- and middle-income workers, criticized the Fair Labor Association in a briefing paper published today, saying its "rosy" determination that a "genuine transformation is under way" in Foxconn's factories are "unfounded."

CNET has contacted the FLA, Apple, and Foxconn for comment and … Read more

Foxconn confirms worker riot at Taiyuan factory

Foxconn, a contract manufacturer to Apple, closed a northern China factory for the day following an early Monday riot that, according to the company, began as a fight between workers. Details remain scarce.

The company said several people were injured and sent to the hospital after the incident, and that some were also detained by police. The factory in question employees about 79,000 workers.

Other reports, however, described a riot possibly involving as many as 2,000 people and, by one account, potentially sparked when a guard struck a worker. Photos posted by a user on the Chinese Internet … Read more

Apple Stores get their turn under NY Times' investigative spotlight

Was recent Apple activity around raises at its retail stores a preemptive strike against a just-published New York Times article?

That's what The Los Angeles Times is wondering aloud today.

The extensive New York Times piece, which hit the Internet today bearing the headline "Apple's Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay," looks at what workers at the stores make relative to their commission-earning dopplegangers at carriers such as Verizon. It also speaks of hectic working conditions and shifts with no breaks, and gives a peek at what some might call the lightly cultish … Read more

Apple-Foxconn relationship probed by 'Sunday Morning' (video)

What's the dirty secret behind all our glittering tech gadgets? That question was on the minds of many this week as The New York Times turned up the heat on a long-simmering story about Apple supplier Foxconn's labor practices (and Apple's response to the situation). In the following video, reporter Martha Teichner of the CBS News program "Sunday Morning" takes a look at the Foxconn-Apple relationship.