Foxconn Denies iPod Sweatshop Claims

Foxconn Electronics (the registered trade name of Hon Hai Precision Industry) has sternly denied a report insinuating that the company was making iPods for Apple Computer in sweatshops.

Edmund Ding, spokesman for Foxconn - chief maker of iPods - said there were huge discrepancies between the truth and the claims in the report, which he said seems like a vicious attack on the company. He added that the company reserves the right to take legal actions over the report.

The British newspaper, The Mail on Sunday, last week claimed that iPods were being made in Chinese factories by employees working in “slave” conditions. The paper alleged that one factory at Longhua — a town just outside the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen - employed 200,000 workers, each of whom had to work 15 hours a day for a monthly pay of US$50. The paper said the workers lived in rooms which housed 100 people each.

However, Ding pointed out that Foxconn has a workforce of only about 160,000 employees worldwide, excluding ones with its handset-making arm Foxconn International Holdings (FIH).
via DigiTimes