Apple's efforts fail to end gruelling conditions at Foxconn factories

[MindMover]

Abuses continue at electronics assembly firm with staff working up to 80 hours' overtime a month, says Hong Kong rights group

Gruelling workloads, humiliating punishments and battery-farm living conditions remain routine for workers assembling Apple's luxury electronics, according to one of the most detailed reports yet on life inside China's Foxconn factories.

The researchers claim that intimidation, exhaustion and labour rights violations "remain the norm" for the hundreds of thousands of Chinese iPhone workers, despite Apple redoubling its efforts to improve conditions.

Interviews with 170 workers and supervisors at Foxconn factories in the cities of Shenzhen and Zhengzhou from March to May this year found that punishments remain a key management tool.

The report, by the Hong Kong workers' rights group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom), says workers at the world's 10th largest employer have been told to clean toilets, sweep lawns and write "confession letters", which are then pinned up on noticeboards or read out to colleagues.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/30/foxconn-abuses-despite-apple-reforms?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[TheWraith]

1. I'm disappointed.

I'd expected this to be a popcorn worthy thread.

That said, I'm not at all surprised that this hasn't stopped. Nor is it likely to when people simply go back to ignoring it.