Chinese schoolchildren work overnight to assemble Amazon Alexa devices
Hundreds of children have been working overnight at Amazon sites in China assembling Alexa devices in an attempt to hit production targets, the Guardian revealed on Friday.
Interviews with workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplier Foxconn showed that many schoolchildren had illegally been required to work nights and overtime in breach of Chinese labour laws.
Chinese factories were allowed to employ minors aged 16 or over, but they could not be asked to work overtime or to do night shifts.
According to the documents, the minors were classified as “interns”, and their teachers were paid by the factory to accompany them.
Teachers were asked to encourage uncooperative pupils to accept overtime work on top of regular shifts, The Guardian also reported, with more than 1,000 pupils currently employed in that manner.
Foxconn said it was taking immediate action to fix the situation.
The company said in a statement: “We have doubled the oversight and monitoring of the internship program with each relevant partner school to ensure that, under no circumstances, will interns [be] allowed to work overtime or nights.
“There have been instances in the past where lax oversight on the part of the local management team has allowed this to happen and, while the impacted interns were paid the additional wages associated with these shifts, this is not acceptable and we have taken immediate steps to ensure it will not be repeated.”
The company defended the employment of minors claiming that “it provides students, who are all of a legal working age, with the opportunity to gain practical work experience and on-the-job training in a number of areas that will support their efforts to find employment following their graduation.”
A spokesperson for Amazon said : “If we find violations, we take appropriate steps, including requesting immediate corrective action.”
“We are urgently investigating these allegations and addressing this with Foxconn at the most senior level. Additional teams of specialists arrived on-site yesterday to investigate, and we’ve initiated weekly audits of this issue.”