iPod maker admits breaking Chinese labour laws

APPLE COMPUTER is getting into a deep PR mess over the antics of one of its its Chinese partners.

After denying that it was running a sweatshop that would be familiar to Charles Dickens, Apple's Ipod manufacturer, Foxconn has finally admitted that it broken Chinese labour laws.

Apparently it was forcing its employees to work about 80 extra hours each month.

It a land where labour rules are a little lax, even this is considered taking the Michael a bit.

Chinese workers can be forced to work up to 36 hours extra a month without Inspector Knacker of the Peking Yard raising an eyebrow, but Foxconn's 80 hours is well over this maximum.

Li Zong, a spokesperson from Foxconn, said the outfit had paid the workers according to the minimum salary standards of the Shenzhen local government. Apparently Foxconn thinks that paying your workers the minimum wage for working long hours makes everything ok.

Foxconn's PR then made life worse for Apple by saying that a team from the Cupertino based outfit had investigated its operations and given it the thumbs up.

So it seems that Apple has approved the use of Dickensian sweat-shops to produce its nice looking iPod sound gear.

We wonder if this will make the iPod users choke on their own muesli and do a Nike on the outfit. µ

L'INQ
www.chinacsr.com