Foxconn Admits Working Conditions Violated Its Own Policy

Foxconn, the contract electronics maker perennially in trouble for alleged workers’ rights abuses, has admitted student interns worked overtime and night work shifts that were not in line with its policy.

Having already admitted it hired underage interns, Foxconn, a subsidiary of Taiwanese firm Hon Hai Precision, has now said there were “a few instances where our policies pertaining to overtime and night shift work were not enforced” at the Yantai factory in Shandong.

Media reports had claimed students from Xian were forced to become Foxconn interns to graduate. Some were said to have worked 11 hours a day and done night shifts.

More Foxconn woe

Foxconn said it had made immediate changes to ensure the Yantai complex is running in line with its policy. It did not comment on claims the students were put to work on parts for Sony’s PlayStation 4 console.

The company has continued to face pressure from rights bodies throughout this year. In May, four suicides were reported, three of which involved employees of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory. Another was said to be of a man who had applied for a job but had not started work.

Those deaths followed a spate of suicides in 2010, which landed the company, which makes devices for a number of the world’s biggest tech companies including Apple, in hot water.

In September last year, it was forced to suspend production at a factory in northern China after a riot erupted involving around 2,000 workers at a privately run dormitory. In January 2012, 300 workers on the company’s Xbox assembly line reportedly threatened to commit mass suicide at the Wuhan factory.

What do you do when tech fails? Take our quiz!