Foxconn's factories struggling to comply with labour laws

Foxconn Technology Group, maker of Apple iPhones and iPads, is struggling to comply with mainland labour laws on shorter working hours, according to a report by the Fair Labour Association.

The Washington-based group said steady progress had been made over the past nine months at the company's three facilities employing an estimated 178,000 workers. The FLA assessed working conditions and the treatment of workers at these three factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu in February last year.

Auret Van Heerden, chief executive of the association, said Foxconn had made a lot of progress but "we are up against the two toughest or most complicated action items: hours of work and union democracy".

Cutting hours to the legal limit of 40 hours plus an average of nine hours of overtime a week was a big task, the report said.

Workers at the three factories worked between 40 and 60 hours during every week of the period under review, with the exception of one of the factories which worked between 40 and 70 hours per week over two weeks, according to the report.

But many migrant workers who came to work in coastal industrial cities leaving their countryside homes behind, prefer working extra hours to boost their pay, one textile factory owner in Zhejiang said.