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Article

9 Aug 2019

Author:
Gethin Chamberlain, The Guardian

China: Schoolchildren found working nights & overtime to meet production targets in Amazon supply chain; Incl. co. comment

"Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices", 8 August 2019

...schoolchildren have been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices in China as part of [an]...attempt to meet production targets...

...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...in breach of Chinese labour laws...

... the teenagers...are classified as “interns”...Some of the pupils...have been required to work for more than two months...during peak production periods...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...said..: “We have doubled the oversight and monitoring of the internship program...to ensure that, under no circumstances, will interns [be] allowed to work overtime or nights..."

A spokesperson for Amazon...said..."We are urgently investigating these allegations and addressing this with Foxconn...Additional teams of specialists arrived on-site yesterday to investigate, and we’ve initiated weekly audits of this issue.”

Teenagers...said the factory work has no relevance to their courses and they have been pressed into working overtime...