Apple audit of Foxconn reveals serious labour laws violations

An audit of Foxconn Technology Group has revealed ''serious and pressing'' violations of Chinese labour laws, that has led to the biggest maker of Apple Inc devices to pledge to trim working hours and give employees more oversight.

According to inspectors, they had found 50 breaches of Chinese regulations as also the code of conduct Apple signed at time it joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA) in January, following deaths of workers at suppliers, the monitoring group said today. By July 2013 the company would  align working hours with legal limits and compensate its over 1.2 million employees for overtime lost due to the shorter work week, it said.

Assessors found cases of employees working longer hours and more days in a row than allowed by FLA standards and Chinese law. They also  uncovered inconsistent health and safety policies as also instances of unfair pay for overtime work. According to the FLA, Foxconn would need to hire, train and house tens of thousands of workers to assemble products for Apple, Dell Inc Hewlett-Packard Co and other customers.

''We are committed to work with Apple to carry out the remediation program, developed by both our companies,'' Foxconn said in an e-mailed statement today. ''Our success will be judged by future FLA audits and the monitoring of the implementation of the remediation program, by reviews carried out by Apple and other customers and by future employee surveys.''

Apple said it appreciated the work done by the FLA to assess conditions at Foxconn.

Following its own investigation in  January finding examples of contractors employing children and forcing employees to work exceedingly long hours, Apple asked the FLA to perform on-the-ground inspections of Foxconn, that employs 1 million workers in China.