No child labor abuse found at Samsung's Chinese suppliers

HONG KONG (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday that it has found no child labor abuse at its Chinese suppliers after conducting an audit on them in a response to allegations that the company has not been fully abiding by law in manufacturing products in China.

Samsung Electronics said it has not identified any instances of child labor while reviewing employers' records at its 105 suppliers in China and conducting face-to-face identity checks of more than 65,000 employees working for them.

New York-based labor rights group China Labor Watch had earlier criticized Samsung Electronics over working conditions at its China-based plants both directly owned by the South Korean firm and by the suppliers. It also alleged at least one of the suppliers for Samsung Electronics has illegally hired underage laborers.

Samsung Electronics' audit team, comprising 121 trained and certified employees, undertook the audit over a four-week period in September.

The tech giant, however, acknowledged several instances of "inadequate" practices at the facilities, including overtime hours exceeding local regulations, the management at supplier companies holding copies of labor contracts and the imposition of a system of fines for lateness or absence.

It added that it is further reviewing 144 more supplier companies in China, which will be completed by the end of this year.

Samsung Electronics pledged it will implement corrective actions to address any violations found. The measures will include new hiring policies, work hours and overtime practices, which are aimed at protecting the health and welfare of employees, it said.

Starting next year, Samsung Electronics will ensure the independence of the audits and continue to monitor working conditions at 249 Samsung suppliers in China through the Validated Audit Process of the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, a third party audit program, it added.

Meanwhile, the China Labor Watch further claimed its investigators have recently discovered a persistent list of problems in Samsung Electronics' own factories in China.

"Samsung promises to eliminate overtime hours surpassing the legal limit of 36 hours per month, but overtime is perhaps the most persistent and abusive aspect of labor violations in Samsung's factories," it said in a statement. "According to our follow-up investigations, workers usually work from three to six times the legal overtime limit."

Whether and how the Samsung officials can truly institute and monitor the new policies they have established will be the major challenge, it said. (Yonhap)