17 
Last month a Chinese labour watchdog fingered Samsung for employing, and abusing, underage workers in its factories. Now a Samsung audit has found no evidence of underage workers — but plenty of other problems to worry about.
Investigating the HEG Electronics facility in Huizhou, China, which was the focus of last month’s report, Samsung found no evidence of employees under the age of 16. It did, however, uncover plenty aged 16-17 — but they were student workers whose presence was perfectly legal.
Elsewhere, though, the audit did uncover plenty of dubious practices: poor management, a system of fines for lateness and absence, overtime beyond local regulations, and inadequate health and safety measures. Phew.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that the facility has a high staff turnover rate, at around 30 per cent per month. Skeptics among you may suggest that the underage workers, then, have just been moved along in preparation for the audit. And, umm, you may well be correct.
As a result, Samsung has “formally notified” HEG that it must improve its working conditions, and also plans to carry out on-site inspections of its 105 suppliers in China by the end of September. Which, uh, is a start at least. [Samsung via Verge]
Image by opopododo under Creative Commons license
I don’t think anyone would like to be fingered by a Chinese labour watchdog
Better that than a Chinese LibDem watchdog……. they’ll get into bed with anyone…….
“Skeptics among you may suggest that the underage workers, then, have just been moved along in preparation for the audit. And, umm, you may well be correct.”
Seeing as we are clearly making wildly unjustifiable statements lacking any sort of evidence, I will add:
NAUB member among you may suggest that there are also unicorns in the building who have just been moved along in preparation for the audit. And, umm, you may well be correct.
(NUAB stand for the National Association of Unicorn Believers)
Yeah it was an opinion unsupported by evidence, but its hard not to be a little cynical about Chinese labour practices sometimes
When I read the 30% turnover figure, I thought ‘Oh, it could be worse’. then I saw that was per month :-/
Imagine what it would be like without the unicorns farting rainbows all over the place, making everyone happy!
@udimion
Just wanted to say, your article reply’s one of the funniest I’ve ever read. This should become a canned response for unjustifiable statements… truly brilliant.
Also let’s not forget that being an underage worker at a factory is probably a lot safer than being an underage hawker on the street or a prostitute. These children are not skipping school to work because they wanted to buy a new iPhone, but because their parents could barely afford to feed them in the first place.
What exactly is your point here?
My point is that shutting down factories which hire underage workers might do more harm than good in some cases. Children should have the right to attend school, but we need to do more than just shutting down the factory. All too often the media focuses on just the company itself and neglects the bigger social problem which forced the children to work in the first place. Once the factory is shut down, the public’s attention quickly switches to other issues, and the children are left stranded in a position worse than before.
I don’t think anyone is trying to shut down factories. They are just trying to get them to improve their work practices
‘Improve’? That is pretty much an indefinable when you relate it to socio-economic situation as usually it is used according to a more western ideal of how society should be run without taking into account the individualities of a society which doesn’t actually adhere to someone else’s ideal.
Similar to ‘fair’ – there is no such thing as ‘fair’ or ‘improve’ because what is fair for one person isn’t fair for another and what improves for one person is made worse for someone else.
I think it may be along the lines that people always judge child labour to be a wholly negative thing but in holding that as an absolute, they often fail to understand both the dynamics of the society in which it happens, and the potential consequences of not allowing children to work in those societies.
Agree with you on the most part, but I wasn’t talking about the socioeconomic situation of having child labour, I was talking about work practices inside a factory. Eg. Improving safety and ensuring they are following local laws
In which case, I also agree with you on the most part.
I’m surprised so much of this is going on because most company’s internally driven audits and quality control people should really be picking this sort of stuff up without needing the bad press. I know some suppliers who have lost business simply because they haven’t implemented seperated waste/recycling plans, and H&S breaches would’ve blacklisted them from future business.