Labour rights violations persist at HEG Technology

A new report by China Labor Watch finds labour rights violations persist at HEG Technology in China. HEG Technology is a state-controlled company, which supplies to companies like Samsung and Huawei. China Labor Watch has been monitoring the company for four years and this report shows the continued violation of labour rights, like the use of underage workers and hiring discrimination.

For the full report, click here.

The main findings:

1. Gender-based hiring discrimination.
2. Applicants need to pay for their own mandatory physical exam to get a job.
3. Workers do not receive a copy of their labor contracts until more than a week after being hired.
4. Workers have to do excessive overtime hours, often putting in two or three hours of extra work a day. A veteran worker said that during one busy time in late 2014, workers did seven hours of overtime a day, working from six in the morning until midnight.
5. Overtime is often mandatory.
6. HEG’s branch plant, where the investigator worked undercover, hires underage workers (under 18) without providing special protections. These young people work the same hours under the same conditions as adults.
7. Due to the company’s organization of work, housing, and transportation, workers typically end up lining up for the bus at 7:45 in the morning and not returning from work until 21:30.
8. Before overtime, workers only earn slightly above the minimum wage. This makes them reliant on long hours to make a living.
9. While pre-job training lasts a number of days, the safety training is generalized and incomplete, and is not specific to the risks of each working position.
10.  Originally the company said it paid workers’ legally mandated insurance, but workers told CLW that they continue not to receive their insurance cards. But HEG has begun to make social insurance voluntary, according to workers, resulting in many workers without insurance.
11.  Workers live 10 people to a room. Day-shift and night-shift workers are arranged to live together, which can create disturbances for people while they are resting.
12.  No functioning labor union was observed at HEG. 13. Resigning effectively requires “application”, despite law only requiring notification.