Foxconn

WASHINGTON, D.C.--At Foxconn's plants in the the industrial town of Jundiai, Brazil, there haven't been any explosions.

Employees at the factory, which is ramping up production of Apple iPhones and iPads, never work beyond the 44-hour a week maximum set by Brazilian law. And those workers, when they first start on the factory lines, make twice as much as their Foxconn counterparts in China.

Labor activists point to Foxconn's record in Brazil to show that it and Apple can make products under lawful conditions while paying workers decent wages when the local environment requires it. … Read more

Rob Schmitz, the public radio journalist who cried foul on Apple commentator Mike Daisey's statements related to Foxconn working conditions, is now reporting from the factory floor.

Schmitz, who has been a longtime correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace, is only the second Western journalist to be granted access to Foxconn facilities, and today offered his first report on what he observed at the company's factory in Shenzhen, China. Not surprisingly, his first takeaway was comprehending the vast number of people working on Apple's iPad.

"In this factory, on the iPad assembly line, what first … Read more

Rob Schmitz, the public radio journalist who exposed Apple commentator Mike Daisey's fabrications regarding working conditions at a Chinese electronics factory, has become only the second Western journalist to be granted access to Foxconn's factory floor.

The reports from the longtime China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace are scheduled to begin airing tomorrow on public radio stations. Schmitz has also written about his visit on his reporter's notebook blog, notes Fortune.

In his one-man play, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," Daisey claimed to have witnessed dangerous working conditions suffered by … Read more

Disgraced Apple commentator Mike Daisey's new show appears to be a disappearing act -- possibly a recurring one.

The performer, who stars in a one-man play he wrote called "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," briefly disabled his Twitter account and made his public blog private, as first noted by The Next Web. Daisey has been keeping a low profile after it was revealed in March that he had made up details for his play, which purported to be an eyewitness account of suffering at the factories in China where iPads and iPhones are assembled. … Read more

A Foxconn recruiting office is telling potential hires that the iPhone 5 is expected to go on sale in June, according to a Japanese broadcaster.

In a conversation recorded here by TV Tokyo and aired April 2, a Foxconn recruiter says the company needs to hire about 18,000 people to manufacture the iPhone 5.

"Because it seems it will go on sale in June," the recruiter says in response to a question about the iPhone 5, according to a Japanese translation of the original Chinese. (That conversation starts around the 7:10 mark.)

This wouldn't be … Read more

Foxconn is promising to be more worker-friendly after finding itself once again on the hot seat over labor issues.

Chairman Terry Gou told Reuters yesterday that "we are saying now in the company, 'you work fewer hours, but get more pay.' We won't stop here and will continue to increase salaries."

Gou, who spoke at the 2012 Boao Forum for Asia in China, was reacting to questions over last week's audit from the Fair Labor Association. That audit uncovered a number of violations at three Foxconn factories in China.

In just its initial report, the FLA … Read more

It's always fun to have a first timer on the show with us, and today we welcome Chenda Ngak, CBSNews.com technology and lifestyle blogger. She's a big videogamer and proud geek, so she's the perfect guest to help us talk about the recent backlash against "fake" geek girls.

Speaking of girls, we don't have them on the show very often so it's great to finally get a female perspective on the Reply Girls phenomenon.

If you haven't heard about them before, Reply Girls are a group of a dozen women dressed in low cut tops that post video replies to trending YouTube videos, exploiting their sexuality to earn money via YouTube's revenue-sharing program. While certainly a symbiotic relationship between Reply Girl and the weirdos clicking on them, we'll discuss the real victims in the scam and how YouTube is putting an end to it.… Read more

week in review Violations in wages and overtime were found at Foxconn during an independent audit of the Chinese manufacturing giant.

The Fair Labor Association's audit of Foxconn, which was posted to the FLA's Web site Thursday, found all three factories in the region to be in violation of both the labor organization's code standard and Chinese law in hours worked by employees. The FLA said these factories "exceeded" 60 hours per worker, which Foxconn has now said will be scaled back to 49 hours per week by July 1, 2013.

Foxconn manufactures gadgets for … Read more

As the Fair Labor Association handed down results from its audit of Foxconn facilities yesterday, the Chinese manufacturer promised reform. But not all employees are so sure those reforms will benefit them.

Speaking to Reuters in interviews published today, a host of workers for Foxconn, which makes gadgets for technology giants ranging from Apple to Hewlett-Packard, said they're concerned the sweeping changes--including cutting hours--will cause them to earn less income.

"We are worried we will have less money to spend," Foxconn worker Wu Jun told Reuters. "Of course, if we work less overtime, it would mean … Read more