Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of TVs and mobile phones, said an internal audit of suppliers in China found “inadequate practices” that include employees working more overtime than allowed by law.
Samsung found that some of the 105 suppliers checked in September were fining workers for being late or absent and were holding copies of labor contracts, the company said in an e- mailed statement today. The review didn’t identify any instance of child labor at the suppliers, Samsung said. A New York-based labor group said in August an assembler contracted by the South Korean company hired children.
Labor advocates are widening monitoring of electronics factories in Asia to Samsung, Dell and Hewlett-Packard after suicides at a China plant of Apple supplier Foxconn Technology Group in 2010 drew increased attention to working conditions. China Labor Watch said in a report in September it discovered “severe labor abuses” at factories owned and operated by Samsung and its suppliers.
“Samsung takes concerns about working conditions in China seriously,” the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in today’s statement. “Whenever an issue is identified, we take immediate and appropriate steps to correct it.”
Samsung is developing and implementing corrective actions to address every violation, it said in the statement. Those may include new hiring policies, work hours and overtime practices, it said.
The company said all candidates will be interviewed in person before hiring to strengthen identity verification measures and to detect fake IDs. Measures to eliminate working hours beyond legal limits will be implemented by the end of 2014, the company said.
Samsung said it examined 105 companies in China, with a total of more than 65,000 workers, during a four-week period in response to China Labor Watch’s reports on its suppliers. The company said it will review another 144 suppliers by year’s end.