Foxconn

Foxconn parent company Hon Hai Precision Industry mustered a sizable profit during the first quarter, but its gains were tempered by rising employment costs.

During the first quarter, Hon Hai generated a profit of NT$14.9 (about $510 million), up slightly from the NT$14.4 billion profit it posted during the first quarter of 2011. According to Dow Jones Newswires, which polled eight analysts who profile Hon Hai, the profit was well below consensus of NT$22.1 billion in earnings.

Hon Hai's profit margin slid from 7.25 percent last year to 4 percent this year. … Read more

Foxconn workers in a facility in Wuhan City in China reportedly threatened to jump off a building if their demands for higher wages were not met.

According to the Hong Kong-based activist group Information Centre for Human Rights (Translate), as many as 200 workers from the Foxconn facility climbed a building and said that they would collectively jump if the company didn't address wage issues. Soon after, local police arrived on the scene, and the workers returned to work.

Reuters, which first reported on the news, spoke to someone representing Foxconn owner Hon Hai Precision Industry, who said the … Read more

Around 2,500 workers at Foxconn's plant in Jundiai in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil could choose to strike on May 3 if management refuses to meet their demands.

Employees have been complaining of severe shortages in food and water and overcrowding on the buses used for transportation, according to the Journal de Jundia (English translation).

A director of the local union told the Journal that food has had to be sent in but that the quality is poor, and the lines to wait for a meal are long. Travel to work is also a problem for … Read more

The small Brazilian city of Jundiai is one step ahead of Cupertino in paying tribute to Apple's late co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. Jundiai's city council officially announced that one of its street is being renamed "Steve Jobs Avenue," according to Cult of Mac.

The avenue is the route that connects the small city to Brazil's largest city -- Sao Paulo. It also houses the proposed new address for Taiwanese-owned Foxconn's new iPad manufacturing factory. Nearby Sao Paulo is where Foxconn just opened a facility to produce iPhones.

Jundiai's city council presented the … Read more

Ever want to see an iPad being made?

Rob Schmitz, the public radio journalist who exposed Apple commentator Mike Daisey's fabrications regarding working conditions at a Chinese electronics factory, recently got a first-hand look at how the iPad is made.

Schmitz, the bureau chief of Marketplace Shanghai, is only the second Western journalist to have access to the factory floor since Daisey's falsified report about hazardous working conditions suffered by employees at a Foxconn factory in China.

Schmitz has been filing reports for public radio as well as writing a blog on his experience at Foxconn. During one … Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C.--A panel of labor activists called on Apple today to increase the amount it pays for devices from suppliers such as Foxconn in order to improve working conditions for employees that make the gadgets.

Apple has come under intense fire for the excessive overtime and low wages of workers at Foxconn's Chinese factories that make its popular iPhones and iPads. One reason is that Apple presses suppliers such as Foxconn to meet tight production deadlines and do so on razor-thin margins.

"It does not encourage the factories to pay decent wages," said Debby Chan, … Read more

WASHINGTON, D.C.--At Foxconn's plants in the the industrial town of Jundiai, Brazil, there haven't been any explosions.

Employees at the factory, which is ramping up production of Apple iPhones and iPads, never work beyond the 44-hour a week maximum set by Brazilian law. And those workers, when they first start on the factory lines, make twice as much as their Foxconn counterparts in China.

Labor activists point to Foxconn's record in Brazil to show that it and Apple can make products under lawful conditions while paying workers decent wages when the local environment requires it. … Read more

Rob Schmitz, the public radio journalist who cried foul on Apple commentator Mike Daisey's statements related to Foxconn working conditions, is now reporting from the factory floor.

Schmitz, who has been a longtime correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace, is only the second Western journalist to be granted access to Foxconn facilities, and today offered his first report on what he observed at the company's factory in Shenzhen, China. Not surprisingly, his first takeaway was comprehending the vast number of people working on Apple's iPad.

"In this factory, on the iPad assembly line, what first … Read more

Rob Schmitz, the public radio journalist who exposed Apple commentator Mike Daisey's fabrications regarding working conditions at a Chinese electronics factory, has become only the second Western journalist to be granted access to Foxconn's factory floor.

The reports from the longtime China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace are scheduled to begin airing tomorrow on public radio stations. Schmitz has also written about his visit on his reporter's notebook blog, notes Fortune.

In his one-man play, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," Daisey claimed to have witnessed dangerous working conditions suffered by … Read more