Meet the men and women behind the iPhone X: they’re stressed, overworked and in their teens
With a harsh spotlight cast once more on Foxconn Technology Group’s labour practices in China, some employees at Apple’s biggest supplier say their working conditions are better than at other electronics manufacturers, where salaries can get delayed or cancelled
At the world’s largest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou city, a transport terminus in China’s geographic centre, an 18-year-old assembly worker who goes by the surname Xin said he was ready to throw in the towel after being on the line for merely half a month.
“I don’t have many big dreams,” said the teenager, who aspires to be a performing artist, like a singer or actor. “All I want is to be with the people I like, and not worry about food and clothing.”
Apple’s Zhengzhou factory, with up 300,000 workers on staff, is the American company’s manufacturing epicentre, the birthplace of one in every two of the world’s iPhones. Work has intensified ahead of the forthcoming holiday shopping season, putting pressure on the plant that is operated by the world’s largest contract producer of consumer electronics, Foxconn Technology Group.
The plant, which opened in 2010, had been under the spotlight lately, after the Financial Times reported last month that as many as 3,000 workers were hired from among local vocational schools, including teenagers. These underage workers routinely worked 11-hour shifts assembling iPhone X units at the plant, the report said.
At the facility, which the company did not identify, “student intern programmes are short term and account for a very small percentage of the workforce,” Apple said. “When we found that some students were allowed to work overtime, we took prompt action. A team of specialists is on site at the facility working with the management on systems to ensure the appropriate standards are adhered to.”
Dubbed “iPhone City” by local residents, the Zhengzhou campus has attracted many young workers, who come from impoverished villages or small towns nearby.
A 31-year-old member of staff involved in quality control said he could not understand why his younger colleagues would ever want to leave a stable job such as Foxconn.
“I would do the job for as long as there’s a chance to be promoted,” he said, giving only his surname of Li. Like Xin, Li would only allow his surname to be quoted, for fear of reprisals by his employer for speaking without authorisation to the South China Morning Post.
The plant has 94 different assembly lines, churning out an estimated 350 iPhone handsets per minute, or about half a million units every day at full capacity, according to a China Daily report.
While Foxconn pays its staff more than other manufacturers and assemblers do, stories abound about workers who are mentally stressed because they must constantly go on night shifts and work overtime to earn the higher wages, said a 24-year-old Henan native at the plant, who gave his surname as Zhang.
“Although they can make up to about 5,000 yuan (US$757) per month, which is quite high in my eyes, I feel that these workers are not in good health because of all the overtime,” said Zhang, who earns 3,000 yuan a month as a clerk.
Foxconn, which employs about 1 million workers on the mainland, has been accused by labour rights activists of abuses. These were blamed for a series of worker suicides in 2010 at the company’s factory in the southern city of Shenzhen and for a fatal industrial accident in 2011 at its plant in Chengdu, a city in western China.
Foxconn, which offers an internship programme at the plant, said it “took immediate action to ensure that no interns are carrying out any overtime work,” according to an emailed statement, adding that interns “represent a very small percentage” of its workforce in China, and that any breach of labour laws was inconsistent with its own policies.
In its statement, Apple said it’s “dedicated to ensuring everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. We know our work is never done and we’ll continue to do all we can to make a positive impact and protect workers in our supply chain.”
Keegan Elmer, a researcher at the Hong Kong-based labour rights non-governmental organisation China Labour Bulletin, said that the practice was common at Foxconn.
“It’s amazing how Foxconn wields its economic power at the local government, making sure it has a constant supply of cheap and relatively good labour, just like the interns,” Elmer said.
Amid the investigations that followed, Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou Tai-ming, the founder and chairman of Foxconn, raised wages, cut working time to 40 hours a week, enhanced equipment testing and maintenance, and extended unemployment insurance coverage to migrant workers.
Apple is dedicated to ensuring everyone in our supply chain is treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
Li, one of the quality control checkers on the iPhone assembly line in Zhengzhou, said life on the company’s factory floor was better than in other shops, despite the negative reports about overtime work.
“Most of the Chinese factories out there have owners who would delay or even cancel payment of salaries,” he said. “Here, I am sure of getting extra pay for working overtime.”
That means working eight hours on average every day, from 7.30 in the morning to 4.30 in the afternoon, according to Li. He gets 15 yuan per hour for working extra time at night and double pay during the weekends.
Xin and other Foxconn workers in Zhengzhou, however, told the South China Morning Post that they would not be able to tolerate their repetitive daily jobs at the factory for long in hopes of receiving a promotion.
“If I stayed on, I would have no new skills. I would not know how to make a living when I get old,” said Xin.
The same sentiment was shared by 22-year-old Niu, who studied agriculture at university and now assembles screws for iPhones in Zhengzhou.
