A Chinese workers’ rights group released a new report today that sheds light on the deplorable working conditions in factories that assemble the iPhone 6. According to China Labor Watch, on February 3, 2015, Pegatron assembly line worker Tian Fulei died while assembling the iPhone 6.
The hospital labeled the cause of death as “sudden death,” but fellow workers say Tian worked long overtime shifts day after day, which gave his family reason to believe that Tian died from overwork.
To smooth things over, Pegatron reportedly offered the family a measly $2,400 as compensation for their son’s death. Tian’s family of farmers couldn’t afford to pay for an expensive independent autopsy to prove the death was work-related. Eventually they took Pegatron’s next offer of $1,277 for his untimely death.
“Tian’s family told CLW that the 26-year-old Tian was healthy when he began working at Pegatron in November 2014. It was only after months of long overtime hours that his health suddenly failed him. CLW’s recent investigations, including for 2013 and 2014, have found consistently that workers making Apple products at Pegatron Shanghai work tremendously long overtime hours.”
Apple’s supply chain practices have come under fire repeatedly over the last five years. Foxconn received most of the attention after a series of suicides at the company’s factories. Pegatron’s practices were recently spotlighted by a BBC One documentary that focused on Apple’s broken promises to workers.
Tim Cook said he was “deeply offended” by the investigation into Apple’s supply chain, and that no one is doing “as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions.”
Via: Fortune
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
8 responses to “How much is the life of an iPhone 6 assembler worth? About $12,000”
“offer of $1277.00” …and suddenly it’s $12k?
Sounds like a typo to me, but which way? Heck, they should have just given his family a Apple Watch Edition (network service charges may apply).
Again, I’m not saying Apple has no blame, but where is the info on all the other companies Pegatron manufactures products for, and how their workers are treated? If it’s a manufacturing-industry-wide problem, I’d like to hear industry-wide reporting.
You won’t hear about the hundreds of internationally based companies that use Asian assembly labor, because only one is named Apple.
The harsh truth is the the value of a person is relative. Somebody with the talent/skill to earn $1 Million (or $10 Million, or $100 Million) per year is worth more than someone making $10 Thousand per year.
Chinese may not make as much as western counterparts, but whatever they make under China’s new capitalist economy it is many, many multiples more than they made under Chairman Mao’s communist economy.
The Chinese wage bashers should get a clue. If it weren’t for unfunded US subsidies and deficit spending since the mid-1960s, the same worker in the US would still be making $1.00/hour. Bottled Cokes would be 20¢, an average 3 bedroom home would be $15,000, a new car would be under $2,500.
Was Tim “deeply offended” by the investigation itself into the working conditions there or by the conditions BBC was investigating?
This is not an Apple (capitalist) problem; this is a China (communist) problem.
So, is it $12,000 or $2,400 or $1,277? There’s a fair amount of difference there.