Samsung supplier said to have breached laws
A supplier for Samsung Electronics is not paying some overtime to workers at its mobile-phone factory in Guangdong, according to labour rights group China Labour Watch.
A supplier for Samsung Electronics is not paying some overtime to workers at its mobile-phone factory in Guangdong, according to a labour rights group.
Samsung, Asia's largest technology company and the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, said it had no immediate comment on the report. The South Korea-based company, like other manufacturers such as Apple, has come under scrutiny for the way its component suppliers treat workers.
China Labour Watch sent an "investigator" to work on the Samkwang production line for two weeks assembling mobile phone covers and screens in the plant, which employs more than 5,000 people, the group said.
The factory did not pay workers at least US$84,000 in overtime pay each month, according to the statement. That worked out to more than US$1 million a year, the group said.
Samsung reported in October that net income excluding minority interest rose 25 per cent to 8.05 trillion won (US$7.6 billion) in the third quarter.
The company is benefiting from shipments of smartphones in China, helping it to weather slowing growth in high-end handsets.
China Labour Watch has investigated working conditions at eight Samsung factories in China as well as Apple suppliers, according to the group's website.
Last year, the group said a Chinese supplier of mobile-phone covers to Samsung employed girls under the legal working age of 16.
The group also found instances of forced overtime at HTNS Shenzhen and said tightly shut windows resulted in poor air quality and a lack of proper ventilation. In response to earlier China Labor Watch reports, Samsung audited 105 Chinese suppliers and did not find any instance of under-age workers, it said in November last year.
Apple assembler Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics, said in October it was investigating practices at its Yantai plant in China after interns worked overtime in breach of company policy.
