Amazon delivers workers victory
Factory vows improvements
STAFF making Amazon Kindle and Echo devices in China will get permanent jobs after a Sunday Mirror probe.
The factory has also vowed to improve conditions for its 8,000 workforce after our exposé.
We found exhausted workers slumped at their benches after toiling for 60 hours a week in conditions branded “illegal and unethical” by human rights campaigners.
Now temporary staff at Foxconn factory in Hengyang, China, are being offered contracts, with sick and holiday pay. And managers have been told to hire more workers to reduce levels of overtime.
Payslips showed Foxconn had paid a flat rate for overtime and regular work, instead of the time and a half required by law.
After an audit Amazon told Foxconn to clean up its act.
Workers’ rights group Chinese Labour Watch said thousands of staff were hired as temps who did not qualify for sick or holiday pay and could be laid off in slack periods. Its investigator found 60-hour weeks were the norm at peak periods, and some staff did 80 hours overtime a month – the legal maximum is 36.
It also claimed many Foxconn staff were on less than half of the average wage. Many got £233 a month at £1.69 an hour.
Foxconn told the Sunday Mirror it is revamping its recruitment and admitted at peak periods the number of temporary workers in the factory did “exceed targets and limits”.
It said: “Our management team in Hengyang has also reminded all recruitment agencies of the need to comply with China law and our requirements, including ensuring that each worker receives a copy of the labour contract they sign with the recruitment agency.
“Foxconn will immediately terminate our relationship with any agency that does not comply with our requirements.”
China Labour Watch’s Li Qiang welcomed the changes but said he hoped Amazon and Foxconn made sure underpaid staff receive the overtime pay they were legally entitled to.