Channel NewsAsia – Apple Watch supplier under fire over China student labour
Washington: Apple is investigating a factory in southwest China after a labour rights group said the tech giant’s supplier forced student workers to work “like robots” to assemble its popular Apple Watch.
Many were compelled to work in order to get their vocational degrees and had to do night shifts, according to an investigation by Hong Kong-based NGO Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM).
But Apple spokeswoman Wei Gu said: “We are urgently investigating the report that student interns added in September are working overtime and night shifts.”
Wei noted Quanta Chongqing was a new Apple supplier and had been audited three times between March and June without finding student interns.
The NGO demanded Apple investigate and bring the labour practices in line with the firm’s own policies and those of the local and central Chinese government.