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. It was only after months of long overtime hours that his health suddenly failed him. CLW’s recent investigations, including for 2013 and 2014, have found consistently that workers making Apple products at Pegatron Shanghai work tremendously long overtime hours. One of the pay stubs CLW obtained recently showed that a worker performed 130 hours of overtime work in November, and this does not count unrecorded or unpaid overtime work or meetings. (Similar overwork and other poor working conditions have been exposed by the BBC and SACOM.) In 2013, CLW also reported the death of a child worker making the iPhone 5C at Pegatron Shanghai.
After Tian Fulei’s family would not accept the 15,000 RMB offered by Pegatron as recompense, Pegatron provided 80,000 RMB. The family, farmers in Shandong, were unable to pay for an expensive independent autopsy to prove the work-related death of Tian and decided to accept the compensation. But this is a sufficient resolution for neither this particular case nor the general crisis of young workers dying while employed to make Apple products.
CLW has already contacted Apple, urging investigation into this and other cases of Pegatron worker deaths.
Below is the death certificate of Tian Fulei with English translation of key information.
ATTACHMENT: Tian Fulian Death Certificate with Selected Translation
Title of document: Citizen Death Certificate
Name of deceased: Tian Fulei
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Han
Marital status: Single
Education level: Other
Children: None
Mental disabilities: None
Birth date: 2 April 1989
Time of death: 3 February 2015
Age: 26 [translation note: in China, age is typically referenced by year, not by month]
Cause of death: Sudden death
About China Labor Watch:
Founded in 2000, China Labor Watch is an independent not-for-profit organization. For more than a decade, CLW has collaborated with labor organizations and the media to conduct in-depth assessments of factories in China that produce toys, bikes, shoes, furniture, clothing, and electronics for some of the world’s largest brand companies. CLW’s New York office creates reports from these investigations, educates the international community on supply chain labor issues, and pressures corporations to improve conditions for workers.
Contact
(For English)
Kevin Slaten
Program Coordinator, China Labor Watch
E-mail: clw@chinalaborwatch.org
Phone: +001 212-244-4049
147 W 35 St Ste 406
New York, NY 10001
(For Chinese)
Li Qiang
Executive Director, China Labor Watch
E-mail: clw@chinalaborwatch.org
Phone: +001 212-244-4049