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LEAD: Apple, Foxconn agree to changes after critical labour report Eds: Adds quotes, background
[March 30, 2012]

LEAD: Apple, Foxconn agree to changes after critical labour report Eds: Adds quotes, background


BEIJING, Mar 30, 2012 (dpa - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Apple Inc and a major supplier, Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, have agreed upon a series of changes to labour practices in Foxconn's Chinese factories after an investigation found problems with working hours, pay and safety, an industry group said on Friday.



A one-month investigation by the US-based Fair Labor Association pointed to "significant issues" with working conditions at three Foxconn plants in southern China, the group said in a report released Thursday in Washington.

The association said it recommended a series of improvements after questioning 35,000 workers and finding excessive overtime, payment problems, and several health and safety risks.


Some of the practices at the three plants had violated Chinese labour laws, it said.

The report said Foxconn had promised to reduce weekly working hours to the legal limit of 49 by July 2013, with monthly overtime falling from 80 hours to 36 hours.

"Apple and its supplier Foxconn have agreed to our prescriptions, and we will verify progress and report publicly," said Auret van Heerden, president the Fair Labor Association.

"If implemented, these commitments will significantly improve the lives of more than 1.2 million Foxconn employees and set a new standard for Chinese factories," van Heerden said.

As well as abuses of overtime and payment regulations at the three plants, the group said it found "other serious issues in areas such as health and safety, worker integration and communication, treatment of interns, and China's social security enrollment." Many of the surveyed workers were concerned about health and safety, while 43 per cent said they had experienced or witnessed an accident.

Labour groups blamed poor working conditions for a spate of worker suicides at Foxconn plants in southern China in 2010.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook met Chinese officials in Beijing this week and toured a new iPhone production line on Wednesday at the recently built Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park in the central province of Henan.

The Zhengzhou plant is one of several new complexes opened by Foxconn in inland areas of China in the last two years, partly in response to rising costs in southern Chima.

Apple is also fighting a legal battle over the Chinese rights to the iPad trademark, which is claimed by Proview Technology (Shenzhen).

Despite the trademark dispute, Apple sold 4.7 million iPads in China last year, taking about 70 per cent of the tablet computer market.

Foxconn is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer, with more than 1 million employees in China alone.

___ (c)2012 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) Visit Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany) at www.dpa.de/English.82.0.html Distributed by MCT Information Services

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