Playing with labour rights
A worker finds it so tired after working for a long hour in Foxconn
Playing with labour rights
Download Report: Playing with Labor Rights
makeITfair report reveals violations of workers’ rights in game console and portable music player manufacturing in China, and is probably the first study ever on working conditions related to these products highly popular amongst the youth.
12 March 2009 - Hiring non-permanent contract labour through labour agencies is increasingly common in the electronics industry. In China, the number of contract workers increased by seven million to 27 million in 2008. They bore more cost for finding a job and suffered from the wage deduction.
“The sales figures of both game consoles and portable music players have increased rapidly in recent years. Still, particularly contract labour making these products has to bear a high human cost. They face wage deductions, leading to even less earnings, and are often worse informed than regular workers”, says Charles Ho, researcher at Hong Kong based organisation SACOM.
The report reveals also that electronics workers in China face severe discrimination in recruitment on the ground of hepatitis B. Job applicants are required to undergo a medical checkup, and diagnosed hepatitis B leads in general to rejection. This discriminative practice is still common in multinationals in China, although 10 percent of the Chinese population is infected by the virus. In addition, job applicants must cover the cost of these tests by themselves, whether employed or not.
The legal minimum salary has become a standard for full-time work, ranging from 72 to 87 euros per month in the studied factories. The workers worked 10 to 11 hours per day, six days per week. Due to very low wages workers do not often have another option but do inhumane overtime and to live in factory dormitories without any privacy. The previous makeITfair-report ‘Silenced to Deliver’ focusing on manufacturing of mobile phones in China and the Philippines in 2008 revealed very similar problems.
This report is probably the first study ever on working conditions in the production of game consoles and portable music players, used mainly by young consumers in developed countries. For many children, videogames may be the first introduction to digital world. Today, a new generation of mobile phones has become the most popular device for playing music on the move in many countries. A half of the portable music players and most game consoles are made in China mostly by big contract manufacturers.
makeITfair investigated labour conditions at four factories that supply for Apple, Microsoft, Motorola, Philips and Sony among others. The research shows that these factories violate national laws and the brand companies’ codes of conduct. These factories belong to the biggest electronics contract manufacturers in the world, namely Foxconn, Flextronics and Celestica. The companies were given the opportunity to comment on makeITfair’s findings. Only Apple did not answer. Microsoft provided the most comprehensive reply, although it did not agree with all the findings. As to the suppliers, only Celestica admitted there was a room for improvement as pointed out by makeITfair.
Currently, economic recession is tightening its grip causing a reason to worry that the vulnerable workers become hardest hit, once again. Big brand companies continue efforts of driving down purchase prices. Yet, their suppliers are expected to raise labour and environmental standards at the same time. “These times challenge multinationals and will show which companies are those with true social responsibility”,
Down load and read the full report at
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Notes for the press
For more information, please contact:
Eeva Simola, FinnWatch, +358 (0)9 2280 8200, +358 (0)44 574 4744
Esther de Haan, SOMO, +31 (0)206391291, +31 (0)642243153
Charles Ho, SACOM, +852-91391059, chunkit(at)sacom.hk
makeITfair is a three-year project that aims to raise awareness about labour and human rights abuses and environmental problems in the production chain of consumer electronics goods, including mobile phones, MP3 players, game consoles and laptops. It is co-funded by the EU and participating organisations are: SOMO, Germanwatch, Verbraucher Initiative, FinnWatch/ Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, Karat, SwedWatch, Church of Sweden, Fair Trade Center, SACOM (China), ACIDH (Congo) and Cividep (India).
The report ‘Playing with Labour Rights’ can be downloaded here:
