Electronics giant Samsung now says it will look into claims that workers in its manufacturing facilities are under age and that conditions in those plants are very poor. Well, that’s nice that they’re looking into that. A report earlier this week from the watchdog group Child Labor Watch said that workers were regularly working 11- to 14 hour days with only one 40-minute break to eat. Also that dorm conditions were terrible and so was the food.
Samsung announced that a team of investigators would be dispatched today to look into the matter. It needs to be pointed out, however, that this team, whatever that means, will be arriving several days after the original report. Now, if you were running a plant for Samsung, making a lot of money off of that, doing that by skimping on food and lodging and working employees long hours, what would you be doing in the last several days to keep your gig going strong? You’d fix up the dorms, bring in better food, hide the underage workers, and make the place look nice for the two or three days the Samsung team was there.
Also: an INTERNAL investigation, Samsung? Come on.
CLW has previously highlighted problems at Apple’s suppliers in China, including an explosion which it said injured 61 workers in December.
However, in a statement about its latest probe it said: “Based on the results of this CLW investigation of Samsung’s supplier factory, it can be determined that working conditions at HEG are well below those general conditions in Apple’s supplier factories.”
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