Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK – A new China Labor Watch (CLW) investigation revealed major labor rights violations at the Chinese factory manufacturing the Apple Watch, which will be released on April 24. Tomorrow, CLW will protest Apple’s continued failure to uphold its labor rights promises and demand that Apple commit $10 of each product to pay for higher wages for manufacturing workers. CLW conducted the probe in March and April, sending an undercover investigator into the Quanta Computer factory…

March 17, 2015 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK – Thousands of workers employed at Plant 3 of the Yue Yuen shoe factory went on strike today to demand an immediate payout of their housing fund after a recent and sudden decision by management to merge two plants. Two Yue Yuen workers have confirmed the strike with China Labor Watch (CLW). On QQ, some people posted pictures and discussion of the strike. Chen (alias) is a female worker in Plant 3…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   NEW YORK – On February 3, the worker Tian Fulei died while employed at Shanghai Pegatron making the Apple iPhone 6. The cause of death given by the hospital was “sudden death” (猝死). But before his death, Tian worked day-after-day of long overtime shifts. Taken together, there is reason to believe that Tian died from overwork. Tian’s family told CLW that the 26-year old Tian was healthy when he began working at Pegatron in November 2014.…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK – Workers at the Stella Footwear factory have been on strike since March 8 over unpaid social benefits, and as of March 9 and 10, approximately 5,000 workers have been participating. The factory is located in Chang’an Township of Dongguan City. Hundreds of workers at a sister plant in Dongguan called Xingxiong Footwear also went on strike on March 10. A female worker at Stella surnamed Liu who has worked at the company for eight…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK – China Labor Watch (CLW) published a new report that investigates labor costs and conditions at two major Apple supplier manufacturers, Pegatron (Shanghai) and Foxconn (Longhua). Ever since Foxconn’s labor costs increased in 2010, Apple has been more greatly engaging lower cost suppliers like Pegatron, which gain their competitive edge through lower labor cost, leading to poorer labor conditions. Although Apple claims they have strict internal auditing of supplier labor conditions, our investigation and analysis…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  NEW YORK – On the heels of a BBC Panorama documentary released yesterday detailing labor rights violations in a Shanghai factory making Apple products, China Labor Watch (CLW) announces that it supports the findings of BBC’s investigation. CLW also emphasizes that this is not an individual case; similar labor abuses are widespread in Apple’s supply chain. BBC’s reporting is hardly the only recent investigation that demonstrates labor abuses like excessive overtime, unpaid wages and benefits, unsafe working…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEW YORK – On Thursday, December 11, China Labor Watch (CLW) will provide testimony at a Congressional hearing titled “Working Conditions and Factory Auditing in the Chinese Toy Industry”. Organized by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), the hearing is based on an investigative report published by CLW in November which revealed continuing labor violations in Chinese toy factories that supply to top U.S.-based toy companies that include Mattel, Disney, Hasbro, and Crayola. The hearing will be…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   December 3, 2014 NEW YORK – China Labor Watch (CLW) today announced that it has collected additional evidence to support the allegations that child workers and student workers from the Chengdu Urban Construction Vocational School in Sichuan Province were employed at Samsung supplier factory HEG Technology this year under exploitative working conditions. Evidence that includes recordings of direct interviews with the young workers demonstrates that they labored for 10 hours per day, sometimes without a single…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 18, 2014 NEW YORK – China Labor Watch (CLW) today published a 66-page investigative report on continued labor rights violations in the toy industry. The four-factory investigation includes plants that manufacture for Mattel and Fisher-Price, Disney, Hasbro, Crayola, and other major international toy brand companies. During the investigation, the factories were making toys like Barbie, Mickey Mouse, Transformers’ Optimus Prime, and Thomas the Tank Engine. The investigation, carried out from June to November 2014, targeted labor…

October 8, 2014 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New York – Based on information from multiple sources, China Labor Watch (CLW) is reporting that at least 1,000 workers in the D Zone of Foxconn’s Chongqing-based factory went on strike Wednesday to demand a wage raise and improved benefits. Beginning in the Yongbaoshui District, workers demonstrated with holding banners, including one that read, “We aren’t robots. We need to eat and feed our family.” Workers’ low wages are related to reduced production orders…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 1, 2014 NEW YORK – In the past 24 hours, China Labor Watch (CLW) has learned via media reports that Samsung’s Huizhou-based supplier factory HEG Technology is suing CLW Executive Director Li Qiang and the Shenzhen Zhuoyue Zhisheng Enterprise Management Inquiry Department for false reporting, which refers to CLW’s August 2014 investigative report on HEG’s extensive labor violations, including the exploitation of child labor and student workers. As of the publishing of this statement, neither Li…