Apple outsources the production of its electronics devices and
has recently faced criticism over the working practices of the
companies to which it gives its manufacturing business. Two
journalists from the China Business News newspaper had investigated
the working practices of Foxconn and had alleged that it mistreated
workers. Foxconn is a subsidiary of Taiwanese manufacturing giant
Hon Hai.
Journalist Wang You and editor Weng Bao are being sued for $3.8
million by Foxconn over a story relating to working practices
there. The pair have been in negotiation with Foxconn for the past
few weeks but it has now emerged that the company has persuaded a
court to freeze the assets of Wang and Weng. The freeze applies to
property, bank accounts and cars.
The move has been described as unusual by local legal observers,
who say that a more common approach is to sue the company
publishing the newspaper in cases against publishers such as libel
or defamation.
The reports said that workers at Foxconn were coerced into
working excessive overtime. Foxconn has previously denied similar
charges.
Apple has recently come under significant pressure over working
conditions in its outsourced factories. It produced a report
earlier this month in which it said that though people there did
work longer than the 60-hour maximum set in its code of conduct, it
had not found evidence of coercion.
Foxconn has confirmed the existence of the suit but has not
commented on why it is pursuing individuals rather than the
newspaper publisher concerned, nor has it outlined what its
objections to the original story are.
"The target of the suit is wrong and for the court to agree to
accept it and to freeze accounts and assets is to add wrong to
wrong," Wu Haimin, publisher of the Beijing Times newspaper, told
the Financial Times. Wang told the FT that she had not yet even
been told the basis of the lawsuit.
