Samsung face labour violation concerns in China

A report issued today has detailed a series of investigations into eight factories in China, six of which are directly controlled by Samsung. The organisation, China Labor Watch has said that staff are being forced to work 100 hours of overtime every month, and have to accept unpaid hours and unsafe conditions.

The report says that the workforce at eight factories are forced to “stand for 11 to 12 hours while working, underage workers, severe age and gender discrimination, abuse of student and labor dispatch workers, a lack of worker safety, and verbal and physical abuse.”

The workforce have no system of reporting their concerns to management either, being forced to accept the conditions. The report was handled between May and August this year, looking at factories in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Huizhou, Weihai and Tianjin. These factories manufacture mobile displays, electronic parts and mobile phones.

The organisation said in their report “This sort of illegal and inhumane treatment is rampant among Samsung's factories and supply chain. We demand that Samsung immediately begin the process of rectifying these abuses. With profits of over $12 billion in 2011, we are confident that Samsung has the wherewithal to systematically improve labor conditions for its network of factories and supplier factories in China.”

The investigating team pretended to be members of the public and took on jobs in the factories. They also interviewed staff who had been working longer at the factories.

These eight factories are home to 24,000 workers. The average salary for an employee at one of the factories who make cell phone casings earns $205 a month.

Kitguru says: Samsung will need to be seen to deal with this now that major news publications are running with the story.

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