Apple’s Chinese suppliers are once again under fire following the release of information about the death of an underage worker last fall. Shi Zhaokun, only 15 years old, died in October after working a single month at Apple supplier Pegatron.
Pegatron, while expressing sympathy over the deaths, has admitted no wrongdoing and reports that its internal investigations have yielded nothing of concern
Mr. Shi started his job with Pegatron in September, part of a new group of hires brought in to produce Apple’s new iPhone 5c. Reportedly armed with falsified records claiming that he was 20, the 15-year-old began a series of grueling shifts, according to work logs provided by his family. The records show that Mr. Shi worked nearly 280 hours in his first and only month with the company, often working 12 hours a day, six days per week.
On October 9th, Mr. Shi reportedly checked into a hospital, where his family says he died a few days later from pneumonia. With hundreds of thousands of workers, the pneumonia-related death of a single employee from a company like Pegatron would normally be overlooked. But the death of at least four other young workers under similar circumstances has drawn the focus of activist groups and labor watchdogs. “Considering the sudden deaths of five people and the similar reason of the deaths, we believe there should be some relations between the tragedy and the working conditions in the factory,” said Li Qiang of labor advocacy organization China Labor Watch.
While Pegatron claims that Mr. Shi’s hours did not exceed the limits established by Chinese law, Apple’s own Supplier Responsibility guidelines forbid supplier employees from working more than 60 hours per week. That, of course, assumes that the employee is of legal age to work a factory production line. In Mr. Shi’s case, his true age of 15 failed to meet both Apple’s standards as well as Chinese law.
While most technology companies contract with large Chinese manufacturers and have been forced to address labor issues in recent years, Apple in particular has made a public showing of its efforts to ensure safe working conditions at its suppliers. The company makes a complete list of its current suppliers available to the public and publishes annual reports on the state of worker health, safety, and education at all levels of its worldwide supply chain.
Despite these efforts, deplorable working conditions and inadequate oversight persist at many Chinese companies, leading to potentially avoidable tragedies such as the death of Mr. Shi. Apple has not commented on the situation, and Pegatron, while expressing sympathy over the deaths, has admitted no wrongdoing and reports that its internal investigations have yielded nothing of concern.
Featured image via The Inquirer