Underage children abused at Samsung Chinese contractor?



Samsung is accused of employing child labor through Chinese contractor.
The company denies it and says it found 'no irregularities'.

According to rights advocacy group, "China Labor Watch", Samsung contractor 'HEG Electronics' has allegedly hired children at its production facilities and forced employees to work excessive hours, violating labor laws. This happens at the 'Huizhou' plant that makes phones and DVD players.

Our research indicates that student laborers amount to 80% of the total workforce in the factory. During our follow up investigations, our investigators suspected that there were a large number of child laborers in other departments of the factory, estimating that there may be 50 to 100 children working there. These children were working under same harsh conditions as adult workers, but were paid only 70% of the wages when compared with the formal employees. Moreover, these child workers were often required to carry-out dangerous tasks that resulted in injury.
Apparently, many of the children were drafted from high schools for "summer employment" during high demand production phases, which also seems to be a common practice at Foxconn...

Among the child workers listed above, we interviewed Wu Xiaofang (alias) in particular. She is 14 years old. (Given that she does not have an official ID, we confirmed her age with her.) She told us about her problems at HEG recently. During March and April 2012, she accidentally fell on the stairs on her way from the dormitory to the factory floor, unable to work afterwards. However, the company not only refused to take her to the hospital for treatment but also rejected her request for sick leave. It also deducted 6 days from her wages on the pretext of her sick leave. Similar things happened in late May. At that time, Wu was late because of the illness and asked for leave, but the manager did not approve. She was too sick to work and went back to rest in the dormitory, while the company deducted 3 days from her wages for absenteeism. What was worse, Wu was fired for no reason in late June and expelled in July.
And, not being unfairly fired sounds even worse:

The management are abusive during work, sometimes hitting workers on the factory floor. Any carelessness, such as slow movements, misoperation, or late completion of team leaders' orders could provoke the shouting of team leaders at anytime. Everyday, employees in the workshops were punished by standing all day long, writing self-criticism, or getting fined.
However, Samsung has defended itself and said that it found "no irregularities" in two separate inspections this year and that it plans a third as a response to the new accusations.

You can read the full China Labor Watch report HERE.

If this one is true, it looks like Samsung will be the next tech giant (after Apple) taking action to mend a bruised public image.

* Update:

This is Samsung official statememnt:

"Samsung Electronics has conducted two separate on-site inspections on HEG's working conditions this year but found no irregularities on those occasions.

A team of inspectors consisting of Samsung personnel from Korea headquarters will be dispatched to Huizhou, China on August 9, and it will immediately launch an investigation and take appropriate measures to correct any problems that may surface.

Samsung Electronics is a company held to the highest standards of working conditions and we try to maintain that at our facilities and the facilities of partner companies around the world."
NEWS SOURCE #1: Samsung china assembler employs child workers labor group says (via) BloomBerg
NEWS SOURCE #2: Report underage child workers abused in Samsung factories (via) GizModo

Our thanks to 'Gauss' for this news item!