Samsung has decided to investigate recent allegations of child labor at one of its factories. Accusations surfaced recently against HEG Electronics, one of Samsung’s suppliers that said the company was using underage children to work in harsh conditions.
The South Korea based Samsung will send its own team of investigators to the factory to investigate. This is the third probe by Samsung of this particular facility, with the prior two investigations failing to turn up any labor issues. HEG Electronics is a manufacturer of mobile phones and DVD players for Samsung. It has been accused by the China Labor Watch of having children under the age of 16 working in the factory.
A new CLW report found that the underage children work between 11 and 13 hours each day, which is the same workday as adults, but they received much less pay than the adults do. The report also said that only 40 minutes is given to employees each day to eat and the conditions of the dormitory and meals were described as being appalling.
Samsung released a statement that said prior to the upcoming investigation it had conducted two other on-site investigations of the working conditions in the HEG factory. No irregularities in working conditions turned up in either one of the investigations. On August 9, a team of investigators will be sent to start the latest investigation and will take any necessary measures to make corrections of any problems that they might find.
A supplier of Apple, Foxconn was also investigated by China Labor Watch over poor working conditions as well.
