NEW YORK – A recent China Labor Watch report reveals labor violations in Chinese electronics factories.

The 136-page report focuses on ten factories that supply finished manufactured electronic products to the likes of Dell, Salcomp, IBM, Ericsson, Philips, Microsoft, Apple, HP, Nokia and others. 

An investigation found that factory workers were required to work an excessive amount of overtime hours, especially during the peak manufacturing season.

All of the electronics factories investigated required staff to work between 36 and 160 hours of overtime per month. No one investigated factory was found to be in strict compliance with China’s labor laws regarding overtime hours, says CLW. In many cases, workers were coerced into working overtime hours ‘voluntarily’ to earn a monthly salary that would pay for basic living costs.

The minimum monthly wage found in nine investigated factories did not adequately provided workers with the financial means to afford basic living costs.

The level of labor intensity was found to be extremely high in all ten factories investigated. On one HP assembly line, workers were required to complete their assigned task every three seconds, while continually standing over a ten-hour period, says CLW. The high level of labor intensity left workers more prone to developing long-term occupational illness or injury.

Investigators found that many factories were signing coercive labor contracts with workers. In many cases, workers were not properly informed about the specific details of their contracts.

All ten factories investigated were found to have discriminatory recruiting practices, hiring only young and healthy candidates, while restricting against others based on age, gender, or medical condition, specifically those infected with Hepatitis B, according to CLW.

CLW believes the inhuman working conditions found in these factories not only reflect severe problems in China’s electronic manufacturing industry, but also reveal serious systematic problems in the international electronics industry as a whole. 

The investigations took place over an eight month period from October 2010 to June 2011; 408 workers were interviewed in Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces.
Investigators posed as workers to gain access into the factories.

For a full report, visit http://chinalaborwatch.org/pdf/20110712.pdf.