foxconn

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

"We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain," Apple's CEO Tim Cook wrote in a late January letter to employees.

A couple of weeks later, Cook returned to the same theme at an investor conference, where he said that "no one in our industry is doing more to improve working conditions than Apple."

Really?

After the release of an audit yesterday by the Fair Labor Association we can measure those claims against the evidence. Apple may indeed be serious about improving the conditions of people working for its suppliers in China, but it'… Read more

The average Foxconn worker logs at least 56 hours a week, finds the factory stressful, has seen an accident, wants better air conditioning, and plans on a tenure of about two years. That worker also wants better food in the canteen.

Welcome to Apple's supply chain.

After logging 3,000 staff hours while investigating three factories since February, the Fair Labor Association finally released its very detailed report about labor rights violations going on within the factories of Apple's largest supplier, Foxconn. What has emerged from the report is a composite sketch of the day in the life … Read more

The Fair Labor Association's scathing report of workplace abuses at three Chinese factories of Apple-supplier Foxconn was met with some skepticism by at least one labor-rights watchdog.

The violations in wages and overtime are hardly new, nor are they surprising. After all, Apple itself has documented many of these problems for years on its Supplier Responsibility Web site.

Much of the new report (PDF) acknowledges what's already known -- that workers at three Foxconn factories put in excessive overtime and get paid wages that don't often cover basic needs. But the report lays out no consequences for … Read more

The first results from the Fair Labor Association's audit of Foxconn have revealed violations in wages and overtime, conditions that the Chinese manufacturing giant has pledged to remedy.

The audit, which was posted to the FLA's Web site this afternoon, 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 … Read more