Apple uses forced overtime, delays wages, risks workers’ health

A labour rights group marked the launch of Apple’s latest iPhone on Friday with a report accusing one of the smartphone giant’s Chinese suppliers of exploiting factory workers. Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) say Lens Technology, which makes touchscreen glass, used forced overtime, withheld wages and risked workers’ health after a months-long investigation into three of its factories.

Company founder Zhou Qunfei, herself a former factory worker, became China’s richest woman after Lens Technology’s debut on the Shenzhen stock exchange in March. As the iPhone 6s went on sale in markets including Hong Kong, Japan and mainland China on Friday, SACOM called for Apple to “apply immediate measures to rectify exploitations in its supply chain”.

“We urge Apple Inc to fulfil its corporate responsibility... to give workers a workplace with dignity and respect,” it said in a statement. The rights group’s allegations include workers going for a month without a day off, wages being withheld for weeks and that the company failed to pay social security.

“Dust, noise, polluted water and chemical substances are common problems on the shop floor,” it added, with management “ignoring if workers were well-protected”. It sent undercover workers into factories, as well as interviewing workers off-site.

SACOM was due to deliver its new report on Friday to Apple and Lens Technology, based in the southern Chinese province of Hunan. Protesters gathered outside one of Apple’s largest stores in Hong Kong today morning, holding giant phones with the slogan “Throw Away The Bad Apple”.

But the hundreds of customers who had pre-ordered one of the new phones were largely oblivious. “I think bad conditions happen to all brands,” said James Leung, 30, who was waiting to pick up a rose-gold phone for his wife, which he said cost him Hong Kong $5,000 ($645). “For me, I need a phone, so I’ll get a new phone.”

Lens Technology also supplies Samsung and other leading tech firms. It primarily makes touch-sensitive glass covers for mobile phones, computers and cameras.

SACOM spokeswoman Liang Pui-<g data-gr-id="50">kwan</g> said the group was not only targeting Apple. “But Apple is the richest and has the biggest ability to make <g data-gr-id="54">change</g> and bring the industry forward,” she said.

“We’re trying to bring the facts in front of people and let them know what they are choosing.” Lens Technology and Apple were not immediately available for comment.

Meanwhile Chinese authorities are investigating two managers of Swiss lift and escalator maker Schindler over possible embezzlement and bribery, the company said, the latest foreign firm caught up in a corruption crackdown. Two Chinese managers, including the local managing director, were taken away by police for <g data-gr-id="58">questioning ,</g> the company said in a statement.

“The allegations are not known in detail, but could relate to investigations into employees of the Chinese sales organisation,” the statement said. 

“This primarily concerns embezzlement to the detriment of Schindler, as well as passive bribery (acceptance of bribes), and possibly bribery relating to private individuals.”

<g data-gr-id="60">China-based</g> staff of Schindler declined to comment on the allegations. Since President Xi Jinping took office over two years ago, China has launched an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign, which has brought down government officials and industry executives. British drug marker, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), was fined around $490 million by a Chinese court last September following a nearly year-long bribery probe. 

The court ordered the firm’s former head of China operations, Mark Reilly, to be deported, and sentenced four other former GSK executives to between two and four years in prison, state media have reported. 

Schindler said it is working closely with authorities on the case and will provide further information as soon as “proven facts” have been established.

The company entered the China market 36 years ago and has expanded its business by acquiring a domestic escalator firm and opening a plant in Shanghai.