Days after the PR boss of Apple Australia Jesse James was outed for supporting a con artist to get publicity, Foxconn the Company who make Apple products has been caught out using school kids to make their iPhone X.
According to the Financial Times Foxconn who is Apple’s principle manufacturer have been caught out illegally employing high schoolers to make the company’s latest product.
Foxconn has brought on 3,000 students from the Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School to assemble the smartphone as it works to make up ground following severe production delays.
The report claims that students, who range in age from 17 to 19, have reportedly been required to work at the plants to complete a “work experience” graduation requirement. They regularly work 11-hour days, which violates Chinese labor laws for student interns.
“We are being forced by our school to work here,” one student, who was made to assemble 1,200 iPhone X cameras a day, told the FT. “This work has nothing to do with our studies.”
Both Apple and Foxconn acknowledged that they were aware of the students working overtime, and said they were investigating the matter. Apple, however, insisted that “the students worked voluntarily, were compensated and provided benefits.”
The iPhone X was plagued with rumours of production delays in the months leading up to its launch, and has been hard to come by in the month since.
The smartphone, which features the first-ever OLED display in an iPhone as well as facial recognition technology, is currently back-ordered by 2 to 3 weeks on Apple’s website.
Jesse James or any other member of the Apple PR team has not commented for this story.
