Samsung abuse Chinese workers, claims labour group
September 5, 2012
China Labor Watch has discovered “severe labour issues” at a Samsung production facility including underage employees and forced unpaid work.
Printer manufacturer Samsung has been accused of 
“severe labour issues” following the discovery of unsafe conditions by New York-based labour group China Labor Watch, reports Bloomberg.
Six factories owned by Samsung and two facilities of its suppliers are said to employ underage workers, force in excess of 100 hours of overtime on a monthly basis, force unpaid work and working days may include 11 to 13 hours of standing. Workers are also said to be subject to “verbal and physical abuse” and do not have any effective internal grievance channels.
The report from China Labor Watch states that “the treatment of Samsung’s Chinese factory workers is far from model […] the list of illegal and inhumane violations is long” and follows a report in August that a Chinese assembler contracted by Samsung utilised child labour.
James Chung, a Samsung spokesperson, has claimed that Samsung “frequently” checks its factories and is unaware of instances of hiring underage workers and states that its own investigation did not discover any workers younger than 16.
As of 3 September, Samsung has announced that it will enact on-site inspections of all 105 Chinese companies that product Samsung products by the close of the month.
However China Labor Watch spokesperson Kevin Slaten commented in a Bloomberg TV interview: “Labour violations aren’t restricted to Samsung and are a problem in the electronics industry.”
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