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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 06 2014, @11:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the don't-break-the-law dept.

El Reg reports

Samsung will do 30 per cent less business with a Chinese parts maker reportedly caught with underage workers at its factory despite the supplier's promises to comply with labour laws in future.

The South Korean chaebol suspended business with Dongguan Shinyang Electronics, a subsidiary of Shinyang Engineering, when US charity China Labor Watch claimed it had found at least five child workers without contracts at the supplier.

Chinese authorities discovered that Dongguan was not directly responsible for employing the children, finding that a subcontractor had hired them through a labour agency. As a result, Sammy said it would resume business with Dongguan, albeit about a third less than before.

"Samsung has decided to still take measures against Dongguan Shinyang to hold the supplier responsible for failing to monitor its subcontractors, in accordance with Samsung's zero tolerance policy on child labour," the firm said today in a statement.

"Samsung will continue to further strengthen its monitoring process of its suppliers to prevent such a case from recurring."

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  • (Score: 1) by boltronics on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:04AM

    by boltronics (580) on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:04AM (#78301) Homepage Journal

    I received a link to this in my inbox just yesterday:

    Apple: stop abuses at your supplier [sumofus.org]

    --
    It's GNU/Linux dammit!
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:44AM (#78306)

      Isn't it interesting how Germany (one of the top industrial powers) embraces unions?
      Companies over a certain size there are also required to have employee-chosen people on the board of directors.

      At the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee that was voting on whether to unionize, the company WANTED those folks to vote for the union.
      (Politicians played the fear card and the workers voted against themselves.)

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:35AM (#78314)

        > At the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee that was voting on whether to unionize,
        > the company WANTED those folks to vote for the union.
        > (Politicians played the fear card and the workers voted against themselves.)

        I live in the town with that plant. I'm not connected to it any more than the next guy, but I do watch the local news and read the local paper.

        What was going on is that VW wants a "workers council" which is kind of a W Edwards Demming continuous quality improvement thing [wikipedia.org] and in the US you can't have a "workers council" without a full-blown union because of concerns that it could easily be twisted by the company to have even more control over employees (requiring them to work long shifts, etc).

        So the anti-union guys made this bizzaro argument that the union would actually be controlled by the company so as to be against workers rights. Now that the UAW lost the vote, the anti-union guys are talking about either changing the labor laws or finding some kind of loophole to get VW the "workers council" without involving a full-blown union [timesfreepress.com] - in other words creating the exact conditions they used to scare people into voting against unionization.

        The craven hypocrisy of these ideologues just floors me. It truly is a case of them saying whatever they think will further their agenda at any particular moment in time. The only logical consistency is that it has to further the cause of union-busting - any lie is OK as long as it is anti-union.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @07:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 07 2014, @07:37AM (#78336)

          Meant to mod "Informative" but somehow it selected "Funny". There's nothing funny about it, but it is informative; sorry about that.

          • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Thursday August 07 2014, @09:47AM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday August 07 2014, @09:47AM (#78363) Journal

            Now that's funny! Almost as funny as worker's rights in Tennessee! Where, I believe, Coal miners unions got started? God those people have forgotten where they have come from, and are now as dumb as Texans! Oups! Did I make a state-based slur? I meant as dumb as Kentukians! Oh, crist, worse? OK as dumb as Floridians! What! Not possible? OK, granted. As dumb as Wisconsonites. Fricken Badgers. Prove me wrong! Double dog dare you, you Scott supporters ruining your own state! Now, where were we? Non-Americans, you are welcome to ignore all this internal politiking, until we invade you.

        • (Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday August 07 2014, @02:09PM

          by rts008 (3001) on Thursday August 07 2014, @02:09PM (#78405)

          Sadly, that seems to be the way the whole country is now operating, and I fear the 'wall of stupidity/truthiness' may have grown too thick to break through.

          I have no idea if there is truly a way to navigate past the wall, or what that path may be.
          In the meantime, I just do my best to help educate those around me. It is at least something I can do, however little it may be/seem. :-(

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:18AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:18AM (#78312) Journal

    Just think what Samsung would have done if they found fifteen child-workers! Probably cut back like 90%!!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:50AM

    by cafebabe (894) on Thursday August 07 2014, @04:50AM (#78317) Journal

    This zero tolerance policy looks much more like a 70% tolerance. However, I'm unclear about the finer detail. Is it:-

    1. 6% deducted per child on a linear scale?
    2. 0.931^n of the original contract value where n is the number of children?
    3. A 30% discount for an unlimited number of children?
    4. A min/max function involving some of the above calculations?
    5. Something else?

    Finally, does the new Samsung phone come with an app or calculator function which simplifies this calculation?

    --
    1702845791×2
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hybristic on Thursday August 07 2014, @05:36AM

      by hybristic (10) on Thursday August 07 2014, @05:36AM (#78321) Journal

      I think the idea was to simply apply pressure for them to comply without hurting the bottom line. To me it sounds more like a threat. Like Samsung is playing chicken with the Chinese company; "We will stop doing business with you if you don't comply with the labor laws, don't believe us? Well we will prove our willingness by doing less business right now, expect us to be looking for a new company to do business with, let's hope you fix this before we find someone willing to play ball". Or, Samsung just doesn't care. I think both scenarios are possible.