Samsung Set to Overhaul Working Conditions on its China Production Sites
Improvements are now underway on its Chinese production facilities, Samsung disclosed on Monday, following allegations that the Asian tech titan's manufacturing partners in China were deliberately subjecting product assemblers to inhumane working conditions.
Of specific concern is HEG Electronics, which is Samsung's main assembler in Huizhou, located south of mainland China.
The company, according to Samsung, is now under close scrutiny after a report was published in August this year by New York-based labour advocacy group China Labor Watch, detailing what it claimed as numerous labour infractions seen on production sites that churn out Samsung consumer electronic products.
The main issue levelled by the American labour rights group against Samsung is the use of child labour by its Chinese contractors, with its report last month highlighting the presence of workers as young as 16-year old at HEG's Huizhou factory.
HEG, according to China Labor Watch, mainly produces Samsung DVD players and phones.
Yet in a blog post that the tech giant ran this week, Samsung clarified that following audit by its investigators no underage workers were seen on HEG's production lines.
"But we identified workers under the age of 18 on site ... These workers are over the age of 16 and are student workers or interns, and their presence is legal," the company was reported by BGR News as saying on Tuesday.
The same inspection also led Samsung investigators to report "several instances of inadequate management and potentially unsafe practices."
HEG employees, Samsung has confirmed, were made to toil beyond the government-approved working hours and were not enjoying even the most basic safety and medical entitlements normally provided to the average worker.
Samsung also questioned the system of fines being enforced by HEG's management, which the latter claimed was purely to discourage absences or tardiness.
These practices will be no more soon enough, the company assured, as it ordered its Chinese partner to immediately uplift the overall working conditions of young workers that tasked to put together Samsung gadgets.
"Samsung has demanded that HEG immediately improve its working conditions ... If HEG fails to meet Samsung's zero tolerance policy on child labour, the contract will be immediately severed," the tech firm was quoted by Reuters as saying in a statement.
In the process, Samsung also ordered sweeping audits on all its Chinese suppliers, numbering to about 250, stressing that the ongoing reviews and inspections should be completed between September and December this year.
"If supplier companies are found to be in violation of our policies and corrective actions not taken, Samsung will terminate its contract with those supplier companies," the company vowed.
Samsung has earlier told BGR News that it is wholly committed 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."