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Death of Underage Worker Sparks More Accusations of Labor Violations at Pegatron [Updated]
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I have no first hand knowledge of this either but my neighbour goes out there a lot on business, has first hand experience of these issues and I have spoken with him about it at length. It seams that most of the workers are coming from poor farming communities where intense poverty is common. The jobs at places like Foxcon can earn a comparative fortune and allow a single member of a family to support many people back home. They are however not used to city working, don't like it, and tend to work all hours in order to get as much money together as possible in a short amount of time before returning home. This is a big part of the problem as these workers are there only to work and have nothing outside of that. This coupled with the pressure of being a provider for so many relatives can frequently lead to depression and ill health.
LOL at the people blaming the kid and defending Apple and/or Pegatron by saying that the child knew what he was getting into. Like it or not, the child is still a child. He is less likely to understand and react to the dangers of working long hours, particularly to his health, even though he perhaps was effectively forced to work long hours on low pay in order to survive.
Pegatron cannot just say that they're blameless - as a responsible employer, they ought to carry out some cursory background checks to ensure that the child is over the legal age limit. They cannot just say, 'well, he presented us with [fake] ID and we let him in'. This is assuming that Pegatron didn't take much action to confirm the legitimacy of the child's ID and age (and I suspect that Pegatron sort of knew he was underage).
In a country where child labour is common and where employers such as Pegatron should reasonably expect to be approached by underage workers, there is even more of a reason why Pegatron should have taken greater steps to confirm the age of their employees and assess whether they are fit to work or not.
Secondly, why would Pegatron allow their workers to work such long hours? They clearly knew he'd done x number of hours, as they'd be paying him for the hours he worked.
Thirdly, the parents are also to blame as it appears they knew that their child worked the number of hours he worked.
Pegatron cannot just say that they're blameless - as a responsible employer, they ought to carry out some cursory background checks to ensure that the child is over the legal age limit. They cannot just say, 'well, he presented us with [fake] ID and we let him in'. This is assuming that Pegatron didn't take much action to confirm the legitimacy of the child's ID and age (and I suspect that Pegatron sort of knew he was underage).
In a country where child labour is common and where employers such as Pegatron should reasonably expect to be approached by underage workers, there is even more of a reason why Pegatron should have taken greater steps to confirm the age of their employees and assess whether they are fit to work or not.
Secondly, why would Pegatron allow their workers to work such long hours? They clearly knew he'd done x number of hours, as they'd be paying him for the hours he worked.
Thirdly, the parents are also to blame as it appears they knew that their child worked the number of hours he worked.
Why do you keep applying laws from the wrong countries? Are you expecting to change China's govt from posts on MR?
The contrast is striking:
Photo of Nelson Mandela on the front page of a technology company's website in a shameless PR stunt, followed by news that another of that company's major suppliers engages in underage slave labor.
Oh, and that company remains silent, even though it has the most clout of any technology company in history. Maybe they'll look into it with a committee meeting or something. The good democrat Tim Cook is hoping the news fades quickly, so he can return to his hypocrisy.
Photo of Nelson Mandela on the front page of a technology company's website in a shameless PR stunt, followed by news that another of that company's major suppliers engages in underage slave labor.
Oh, and that company remains silent, even though it has the most clout of any technology company in history. Maybe they'll look into it with a committee meeting or something. The good democrat Tim Cook is hoping the news fades quickly, so he can return to his hypocrisy.
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No, it's a euphemism used to disguise the finality of death. "Passing" on to the "next life" or some nonsense like that. I came to hate the word when Steve Jobs "passed", as it became so overused by the media.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=p...=1&ie=UTF-8#espv=1&q=passed+euphemism&spell=1
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It's pretty unreasonable to hold the company accountable for hiring a worker that presented falsified documents, unless those documents were obviously false. It also sends a pretty poor message to employers...don't hire young people, or you might get in trouble. Only hire people that look to be over the age of 30, otherwise you might get in trouble if you accidentally hire someone underage.
Does anybody else realize how ridiculous it is in general to try to criminalize those who wish to work? If someone on a voluntary basis wants to work, what right does the government have to prevent them from doing so? Now, if you can prove that an adolescent is perhaps being forced to work by an abusive parent, or forced to work against their will for whatever reason, that's one thing. But all of these "worker protection" laws never really protect the workers, and in fact, hurt low-income workers from advancing. How does a poor family increase their wealth? They work hard, and save...and young people in the family might want to volunteer to work to improve their futures. Worker protection laws criminalize people who want to do just that. Ridiculous. And liberals wonder why the wage gap continues to increase
Does anybody else realize how ridiculous it is in general to try to criminalize those who wish to work? If someone on a voluntary basis wants to work, what right does the government have to prevent them from doing so? Now, if you can prove that an adolescent is perhaps being forced to work by an abusive parent, or forced to work against their will for whatever reason, that's one thing. But all of these "worker protection" laws never really protect the workers, and in fact, hurt low-income workers from advancing. How does a poor family increase their wealth? They work hard, and save...and young people in the family might want to volunteer to work to improve their futures. Worker protection laws criminalize people who want to do just that. Ridiculous. And liberals wonder why the wage gap continues to increase
I talk about things that I know, not about things that I don't know. This may be strange to someone reading MacRumors, but that's what I do. However, since nobody including the guy I responded to is an expert in Chinese law, I think it is quite reasonable to assume that something that is wrong according to the laws of three countries is wrong according to the laws of a fourth country as well.
The guy talked about "accidental deaths" when someone died of pneumonia. So that death could be a lot of things, and could be the fault of Pegatron, but it is definitely not an "accidental death". And you say that five deaths mean "something must be going on" - but these companies are huge, I don't know how many employees Pegatron has but Foxconn has far over a million, and with that number of employees you will have things happening all the time.
Just turn on your brain. Don't make claims about things that are not true. Don't jump to conclusions without checking the numbers.
I started working when I was 14 years old, and this was in the US, and legal. It was part-time, sure, but let's not pretend that kids can't get jobs and work. They do all the time in western countries, and nobody has any ethical problems with it, even work that may be considered dangerous. Heck, I was working with some dangerous equipment at my job, too.
I think it's very relevant that this kid used a fake ID to say he was 20 years old when he got the job. As such, the company can't be held responsible for breaking child labor laws. They did their due diligence and checked his ID. He's the one who broke the law.
There are always people complaining about Chinese labor being overworked and underpaid. Yet clearly the workers there don't think so. They line up for miles just to get a job in these factories, and they work hard because they want a better life for their family. The alternative is no job, or a much worse paying job, and their families starving. China is a developing country. Life is hard there for many people, just as it was hard for many people in every single other developing country. If China is going to raise their population's standard of living, it will be with the hard work of those wanting a better life. They're not slaves being worked to death, they're choosing to work long hours because the alternative is so much worse.
But sure, demand that manufacturing jobs be taken away from poor Chinese families. I'm sure they'll be much better off not having any jobs at all. Let's also, in the West, revert our economy all the way back to the early industrial era, and return to having nothing but unskilled labor jobs. That's much better than looking forward, to new kinds of jobs that require creativity and intelligence.
I think it's very relevant that this kid used a fake ID to say he was 20 years old when he got the job. As such, the company can't be held responsible for breaking child labor laws. They did their due diligence and checked his ID. He's the one who broke the law.
There are always people complaining about Chinese labor being overworked and underpaid. Yet clearly the workers there don't think so. They line up for miles just to get a job in these factories, and they work hard because they want a better life for their family. The alternative is no job, or a much worse paying job, and their families starving. China is a developing country. Life is hard there for many people, just as it was hard for many people in every single other developing country. If China is going to raise their population's standard of living, it will be with the hard work of those wanting a better life. They're not slaves being worked to death, they're choosing to work long hours because the alternative is so much worse.
But sure, demand that manufacturing jobs be taken away from poor Chinese families. I'm sure they'll be much better off not having any jobs at all. Let's also, in the West, revert our economy all the way back to the early industrial era, and return to having nothing but unskilled labor jobs. That's much better than looking forward, to new kinds of jobs that require creativity and intelligence.
Yap, why stop at 15? If a 8 years by wants to work, why the government must stop that?
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Right, they can choose, they can be like slaves or they can starve. It is just their choice, nobody forces them to work 80 hours a week tio earn a misery
I quote you 100%.
At Apple they surely know what happens in China factories, they just don't care about it at all and probably could do little about it. China is a dictatorship. And also holds most of USA debt.
Only way to change things is to stop buying everything that is made in China.
Pretty tough to achieve.
There is a link in the article to Apple's "Supplier responsibility report". Read it and realise that you can't just say "what happens in China factories", because every factory is different, you will realise that Apple cares very much, and Apple does a lot about it. Things like employing someone who is underage _can_ happen in few cases by mistake (especially if someone has forged papers), or if a company turns a blind eye - in the latter case, Apple cancels their contracts and has done so more than once. (I hope people realise that a company like Pegatron doesn't actually benefit from hiring a fifteen year old, because they have to pay the same salary as to a 16 year old - after all, they don't know or have to pretend they don't know he is only fifteen. Hiring a fifteen year old meant that one 16, or 17 year old who would probably have done a better job for the same money wasn't employed. )
There are two different aspects: One, this kid was only fifteen, which means by definition that he wasn't responsible in any way for this because he's too young. We can assume that Pegatron made an honest mistake hiring him, but they still made a mistake and companies are responsible for mistakes.
The other, it's not a choice "be like slaves or starve". Even in China, you can live off 40 hours work at a decent company. Of course, if you want to save the largest possible amount of money in the shortest possible time, you will try to get as much overtime as possible. And then a fifteen year old might be less capable of saying "no" than an adult and agree to do overtime when he shouldn't and wasn't actually forced but felt forced.
Not exactly.
On topic,
On NPR this morning, they interviewed a Foxcon worker and she confirmed some of my thoughts on the subject. She had stated that she needs to work as much OT as possible to pay the bills, and doesn't like the laws preventing overtime.
I agree with the presenter on NPR, that pressure should be put on Apple (and other parent companies hiring Foxcon and the likes) to increase wages for these employees, so they don't feel like they need to push themselves so hard, and work so many hours to make ends meet.
Perhaps. But higher wages have some disadvantages as well. If they are much higher than the "market rate", there will be even more abuse from workers trying to get these high-paying jobs. And they may still want to work too many hours to earn as much money as they can. I don't think there's a simple answer to a rather complex problem.
Great and valid points.
Then come labor unions, pensions, and other benefits that cause conflicts down the road as well.
