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Chinese factories now exploiting interns.
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“We are standing at the assembly line the whole day, doing the same task again and again. It has nothing to do with my education,” says Xu Min, a 19-year-old college student in Hubei, China. “None of us want to be here. We are all depressed, but we have no choice.… The work is exhausting.”
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Drawing on field research and interviews with workers last summer, investigators concluded that an officially sanctioned pipeline of deregulated labor allows both schools and multinationals to benefit from the exploitation of young temp workers. Under pressure from their institutions and the approval of Western brands, “Thousands of Chinese students…work 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, for up to 5 months.” Their overtime—typically needed to cover basic living expenses—may amount to as much as 100 hours a month, far exceeding the regulatory limit of 36 hours per month. The investigated subcontractor, Taiwanese multinational Wistron—along with its multinational clients Lenovo, Dell, and HP—have acknowledged Danwatch’s concerns overall, but generally denied students were systematically forced to work.
Traditionally, rural migrants have filled manufacturing labor demands, but conscripted interns now form a major surplus army of labor, enabling manufacturers to capture a vulnerable youth workforce that’s increasingly striving for a life beyond factory drudgery. Though less publicized than Asia’s notorious garment sweatshops, advocates say the exploitation of contingent student workers follows similar practices of predatory capitalism as “development.”
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The Secret Weapon for Cutting Costs at Chinese Factories? Interns
“We are standing at the assembly line the whole day, doing the same task again and again. It has nothing to do with my education,” says Xu Min, a 19-year-old college student in Hubei, China. “None of us want to be here. We are all depressed, but we have no choice.… The work is exhausting.”
~
Drawing on field research and interviews with workers last summer, investigators concluded that an officially sanctioned pipeline of deregulated labor allows both schools and multinationals to benefit from the exploitation of young temp workers. Under pressure from their institutions and the approval of Western brands, “Thousands of Chinese students…work 10-12 hours a day, six days a week, for up to 5 months.” Their overtime—typically needed to cover basic living expenses—may amount to as much as 100 hours a month, far exceeding the regulatory limit of 36 hours per month. The investigated subcontractor, Taiwanese multinational Wistron—along with its multinational clients Lenovo, Dell, and HP—have acknowledged Danwatch’s concerns overall, but generally denied students were systematically forced to work.
Traditionally, rural migrants have filled manufacturing labor demands, but conscripted interns now form a major surplus army of labor, enabling manufacturers to capture a vulnerable youth workforce that’s increasingly striving for a life beyond factory drudgery. Though less publicized than Asia’s notorious garment sweatshops, advocates say the exploitation of contingent student workers follows similar practices of predatory capitalism as “development.”
~
The Secret Weapon for Cutting Costs at Chinese Factories? Interns
