Undercover investigators at eight Chinese factories supplying Samsung, of which six are controlled by the company, reported that workers at all the plants routinely worked more than the legally permitted amount of overtime. They also said that most of the factories did not uphold workers’ legal rights to a labour contract, and that workers had inadequate means of expressing grievances to their managers.
Samsung declined to comment immediately but said it would issue a statement on Thursday. A person close to the company said it was “a given that workers’ welfare is one of [its] priorities”.
The report criticised Samsung’s factories for targeting student workers, with one plant said to have only hired staff aged between 16 and 20. Some workers had to pay fees of up to Rmb800 ($126) to be hired, equivalent to almost half a month’s wages. Workers at all eight factories allegedly worked more than the legal maximum of 34 hours’ overtime a month: at seven factories, the average was more than 100 hours, with workers at one factory reaching 186 hours.
Last month CLW published claims of malpractice at a factory in the southern Chinese town of Huizhou, run by HEG Electronics, one of Samsung’s Chinese suppliers. That report alleged that the use of workers under the age of 16 was “common practice” in the factory.
Samsung said on Monday that its own investigators had found no evidence of underage workers at the Huizhou factory, but said it had discovered “inadequate management and potentially unsafe practices”. It said it had demanded that HEG immediately improve its working conditions, and that it would carry out on-site investigations this month of all 105 of its Chinese suppliers.
In South Korea, Samsung has faced accusations that it failed to protect workers from carcinogenic substances at its semiconductor plants. A court last year ruled that this had caused the death from cancer of two workers and, while Samsung says its plants are now safe, executives have privately expressed concern that more such cases may follow.
Analysts in Seoul said the damage caused by the CLW allegations would be manageable for Samsung, which is on course to record net earnings of more than $20bn this year. “Given Samsung’s sensitivity to bad publicity, it will likely act sternly to improve the situation so the report’s damage on Samsung’s reputation or its businesses in China will be limited,” said Lee Jae-hyuk at Daiwa Securities.
The report questioned whether Samsung was “infringing upon Apple’s patent to bully workers” – an apparent allusion to recent reports of labour law breaches at Foxconn factories in China, where millions of Apple products are assembled each year. Earlier this year Apple and Foxconn promised improvements in pay and working conditions, and compensation for the workers in question.
F.T.
Samsung to investigate China-plant overtime
SEOUL--Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday it will evaluate scheduling practices at its 13 China factories and admitted some workers at those plants are occasionally required to work overtime, after an independent labor-rights group accused the Korean electronics giant of "severe labor abuses" in the country.China Labor Watch, an organization that investigates worker conditions in China's export sector, said in a report Tuesday it conducted investigations at eight Samsung-linked factories in China--six of which are operated by Samsung, and two others operated by suppliers--between May and August.
The group said it found workers doing excessive overtime work, underage workers, severe age and gender discrimination, and physical abuse.
Samsung agreed that some workers do take on overtime, but rejected the other allegations.
"We partly agree with the report that there are times when workers need to stay for overtime at some plants, especially when we launch new products or build new manufacturing lines," Samsung spokesman James Chung said.
"Samsung has 13 plants in China and we will conduct re-evaluation on the working hour practices at all those plants," Mr. Chung added.
The latest developments come after Samsung said Monday it had found problems with working conditions at the plant of one of its China suppliers, HEG Electronics (Huizhou) Co., but no evidence of the use of staff under the legal working age of 16.
Those comments were in response to a separate report by China Labor Watch that said the plant in question was using child labor.
Samsung said Monday it was conducting checks to ensure all its facilities in China comply with the company's labor policies, including on underage labor, and added it will terminate contracts with Chinese suppliers that fail to meet the company's guidelines.
MarketWatch
Samsung Abuses Workers at Its China Plants, Labor Group Says
Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) plants and suppliers in China employed underage workers, forced them to work overtime and exposed them to unsafe conditions, a New York- based labor group said as it increased scrutiny on the world’s largest seller of mobile phones and TVs.China Labor Watch discovered “severe labor abuses” at six factories owned and operated by Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung, and two facilities of its suppliers, the group said in a report dated yesterday. The violations include forced overtime work amounting to more than 100 hours a month, unpaid work and 11 to 12 hours of standing, it said.
The workers, also subject to “verbal and physical abuse,” don’t have any effective internal grievance channel, the group said. Labor advocates are widening their monitoring of electronics factories in Asia to Samsung, Dell Inc. (DELL) and Hewlett- Packard Co. after suicides at a China plant of Apple Inc. supplier Foxconn Technology Group in 2010 increased attention on working conditions.
“Labor violations aren’t restricted to Samsung and are a problem in the electronics industry,” Kevin Slaten, a spokesman for China Labor Watch, said in a Bloomberg TV interview today.
China Labor Watch is currently investigating a factory that makes products for companies including HP, Dell and Microsoft Corp., Li Qiang, a New York-based director at the group, said in a phone interview through a translator. The group also will recheck factories run by Samsung and its suppliers to determine whether improvements have been made, Li said.
‘Inhumane Violations’
“The treatment of Samsung’s Chinese factory workers is far from model,” according to the report. “The list of illegal and inhumane violations is long.”
The findings follow an August report from the group that said a Chinese assembler contracted by Samsung used child labor, prompting the Korean company to broaden inspections of its suppliers.
Samsung “frequently” checks its factories and the company isn’t aware of instances of hiring underage workers, James Chung, a Seoul-based spokesman, said by phone today.
The electronics maker has “zero tolerance” for child- labor violations at its suppliers and will stop doing business with any company found to hire minors, Chung said. The company is aware that some workers in China volunteer to work extra hours and will take “additional steps to re-evaluate our working hour practices,” he said, declining to comment on whether the company will raise wages.
$250 Salary
Samsung’s labor audits on its contractors aren’t accurate because factory owners learn about the inspections in advance, Slaten said in the interview.
The eight plants investigated by CLW employed a combined 24,000 workers making mobile phones, DVD players, mobile displays and air conditioners, the report said. The base salary for workers at a printer factory owned by Samsung is about $250 a month, the report said.
The group said its investigators either posed as workers to enter the factories or interviewed workers outside.
China Labor Watch said last month that seven children younger than 16 were working in the factory of HEG Electronics (Huizhou) Co. that makes phones and DVD players for Samsung. Samsung conducted its own investigation and said this week it didn’t find any workers younger than 16.
IBM, Dell
Samsung said Sept. 3 it will conduct on-site inspections by the end of this month on all 105 Chinese companies that make products solely for the company. The company also plans to have the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, a Washington- based industry group, regularly check its own plants and all of its suppliers in China from 2013.
The EICC is a group monitoring industry supply chains, with electronics and technology companies as members. Its current board members include officials from International Business Machines Corp., Dell, HP and Intel Corp., according to its website.
Foxconn, the Apple supplier targeted by human-rights activists after the suicides, has cut working hours and improved safety at a faster pace than it was required, the Fair Labor Association said in a report last month.
Apple opened factories making its products to the FLA, becoming the first electronics company to join the Washington- based independent labor monitoring group.
Bloomberg
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