Apple is probing allegations that one of its Chinese suppliers illegally employed high schoolers to assemble Apple Watches.
The accusations were made by a Hong Kong-based labor rights group, which said it found that students aged 16 to 19 were forced to take summer internships in which they worked 12 hour days assembling the wearable, according to a Financial Times report.
The labor rights group spoke with 28 students, who said they were pressured to take the “internships” by their teachers who were told that”they would not graduate on time” if they didn’t take the job.
Upon arriving to the factory, however, the students found that they were performing the same jobs as other assembly line workers.
In certain cases, the report said, students were forced to work overnight shifts, as well as more overtime than is permitted by Apple’s labor standards.
One student told the labor rights group that they were forced to work from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
“Only one day off is allowed per week,” the student said.
In a Monday statement, the Cupertino, Calif.-based iPhone maker said that it had audited the factory in question and found no evidence of student labor during the period of time described, but that it was continuing to assess the situation.
“We are urgently investigating the report that student interns added in September are working overtime and night shifts,” Apple said. “We have zero tolerance for failure to comply with our standards and we ensure swift action and appropriate remediation if we discover code violations.”
It’s not the first time that an Apple supplier has been caught taking advantage of teen labor. Last year it was reported that Foxconn had enlisted 3,000 high school students to staff their factories in a scramble to meet high demand for the then-new iPhone X.
Both Apple and Foxconn acknowledged that they were aware of the students working overtime, and said they were investigating the matter. Apple, however, insisted that “the students worked voluntarily, were compensated and provided benefits.”
Apple shares were down 2.1 percent in Monday afternoon trading, at $211.80.
Source: Read Full Article