Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce
Amazon Alexa devices
Gethin
Chamberlain Thu 8 Aug 2019
23.37 BST
Leaked documents show children as young as 16 recruited by Amazon supplier
Foxconn work gruelling and illegal hours
Leaked / liːkt /: Made public
Gruelling: A gruelling activity is extremely difficult and tiring to do.
(agotador)
Hundreds of
schoolchildren have
been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices in China as part of a controversial and often illegal attempt
to meet production targets, documents seen by the Guardian reveal.
Draft in: If people are drafted into a place, they are moved there to do a
particular job. If you are drafted, you are ordered to serve in the armed
forces, usually for a limited period of time. If people are drafted into a
place, they are moved there to do a particular job.
Interviews with
workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplier Foxconn show that many of
the children have been required to work nights and overtime to produce the
smart-speaker devices, in breach of Chinese labour laws.
Breach of: The act of breaking
According to the
documents, the teenagers – drafted in from schools and technical colleges in
and around the central southern city of Hengyang – are classified as “interns”,
and their teachers are paid by the factory to accompany them. Teachers are
asked to encourage uncooperative pupils to accept overtime work on top of
regular shifts.
Some of the
pupils making Amazon’s Alexa-enabled Echo and Echo Dot devices along with
Kindles have been required to work for more than two months to supplement
staffing levels at the factory during peak production periods, researchers
found. More than 1,000 pupils are employed, aged from 16 to 18.
Chinese
factories are allowed to employ students aged 16 and older, but these
schoolchildren are not allowed to work nights or overtime.
Foxconn, which
also makes iPhones for Apple, admitted that students had been employed
illegally and said it was taking immediate action to fix the situation.
(…)
“Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd”.
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