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The first results from the Fair Labor Association’s (FLA’s) audit of Foxconn have revealed violations in wages and overtime, conditions that the Chinese manufacturing giant has pledged to remedy.

Workers depicted in Apple’s 2011 supplier responsibility report.
(Credit: Apple)

The audit, which was posted to the FLA’s website yesterday, found all three factories were in violation of both the labour organisation’s code standard, and Chinese law in terms of hours worked by employees, which the FLA said “exceeded” 60 hours per worker. As a result, Foxconn has said worker hours will be scaled back to 49 hours per week.

The FLA also noted that more than 60 per cent of workers at three of Foxconn’s facilities felt they were not being paid enough to “meet their basic needs”. The FLA said it’s following up with a study to determine the cost of living in Shenzhen and Chengu where those factories are based.

“Apple and its supplier Foxconn have agreed to our prescriptions, and we will verify progress and report publicly,” said Auret van Heerden, the FLA’s president and CEO in a statement.

The results are the first from a considerably larger audit of Apple’s suppliers and manufacturing partners.

The FLA began its investigation of Foxconn last month at Apple’s request. Other companies still in line for audits include Quanta and Pegatron. As part of those investigations, the FLA said it would interview “thousands of employees” about their working and living conditions, as well as inspecting factories for any potential violations of health and safety. This first round was based on 3000 staff hours of investigation, and surveying more than 35,000 workers, the FLA said.

The FLA investigation was originally planned as part of a larger audit of Apple, and was moved up primarily by a New York Times investigation highlighting often brutal working conditions and sometimes deadly safety problems at Foxconn. Apple joined the FLA, a group known for addressing sweatshop conditions in the apparel industry several weeks prior to that report.

The group was started by universities and non-profit groups, and companies such as Nike as a way to address sweatshop labour abuses. The group has been criticised for being too cosy with its corporate partners. And those concerns were raised again after Apple joined the group and commissioned the FLA audit.

Even before the report’s release, Apple critics were ready to dismiss the findings. In a statement last week, a group that includes Students Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour and International Metalworkers’ Federation said it expected FLA to find labour-rights violations, since Apple has already acknowledged on its own Supplier Responsibility website that they exist. The group also expected Apple to promise to address the issues, something the company has done previously.

“The question, however, is not whether there are severe labour rights problems in Apple’s supply chain,” the group wrote. “This has been obvious for years. And the question is not whether Apple will promise, again, to fix these problems. They surely will. The question is whether anything will actually change.”

Change, the groups said, will come only when the workers themselves are able to monitor and address workplace problems. The groups want Apple to press its suppliers to let workers elect leaders who can collectively bargain.

“If Apple is genuinely concerned about improving the labour rights of workers that manufacture its products, it must ensure that they can negotiate with their employer to bring lasting change to the way that work is performed and compensated,” the group wrote (PDF).

For its part, Apple has published a supplier responsibility report annually since 2007, detailing issues found in its supply chain. Last year’s report, published in early January, included the results of more than 200 audits at supplier facilities.

Via CNET