Workers at suicide-plagued Foxconn plants, which make some of the world's most sought-after gadgets, remain subject to onerous and illegal working conditions, according to a protest group which conducted hundreds of on-site interviews.

Labor group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour, or SACOM, went to four Foxconn facilities and interviewed more than a hundred employees in March and April 2011, to survey the current working conditions. The report found staff working overtime that exceeded the legal limit, endless back-to-back shifts, and dormitories that feel like prison blocks.1

[partner id="wireduk"]Labor laws in China dictate that overtime should not exceed 36 hours per month. The report says that workers are usually subjected to 50 to 80 hours of overtime a month. In the Chengdu facility – where Foxconn employees put together the iPad – staff could expect a grueling 80 to 100 hours of overtime, on top of the 174 regular work hours.

Staff members interviewed said that working overtime was voluntary, but making up the extra hours was necessary to earn a regular salary.

A typical day for a worker at Chengdu consists of waking up at 6:45 a.m. for a 7:40 a.m. start at work assembly, before working all day until 8:00 p.m. Staff is often bullied into moving directly from regular work into overtime hours without a break, and workers are often punished if they don't.

Staff members – who aren't allowed to talk, carry a mobile phone or even sit down – are not just punished if they mess up: They're humiliated. "If they made [a] mistake, they had to write a confession letter and hand it to the supervisor," the report says. "If the mistake is serious, the worker has to read the confession letter in front of his other colleagues."

Foxconn spokesman Louis Woo admitted to the Daily Mail that conditions can be rough. When asked about the humiliation of workers, Woo said, "It is not something we endorse or encourage. However, I would not exclude that this might happen given the diverse and large population of our workforce. But we are working to change it."

SACOM has demanded that Foxconn and the technology companies that hire the plant change their policies. For the employees, though, they just want to be able to talk, to have a normal social life or, in some cases, get their hands on the gadgets they make."

"Though we produce for iPhone, I haven't got a chance to use iPhone," a worker from Guanlan said. "I believe it is fascinating and has lots of function. However I don't think I can own one by myself." A luxury gadget like that would cost a Foxconn employee around two months' salary.

Note 1. An earlier version of this story imprecisely described a study about Foxconn working conditions. A Bloomberg news article published a year earlier reported that Foxconn was asking employees to sign a pledge that they would not commit suicide and accept medical help if necessary.

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