An anonymous reader shares a report [the story is behind a paywall; alternative source]: Seven years ago, Apple made a staggering discovery: Among the employees at a factory in China that made most of the computer ports used in its MacBooks were two 15-year-olds. Apple told the manufacturer, Suyin Electronics, that it wouldn’t get any new business until it improved employee…
Tag: working conditions
Study Claims 18% of Covid Patients Later Diagnosed with Mental Illness
A new article summarizes research from the University of Oxford and NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. Slashdot reader AleRunner writes: Nearly one in five people who have had Covid-19 are diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder such as anxiety, depression or insomnia within three months of testing positive for the virus,” Natalie Grover writes. Although “people with a pre-existing mental health…
Apple Suspends Supplier For Using Illegal Student Labor In China
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple has reprimanded one of its largest manufacturers after a Financial Times investigation found that thousands of student interns had worked overtime to assemble iPhones, in breach of Chinese law. After being contacted by the FT, Apple said it had stopped giving “new business” to Pegatron, its second-largest iPhone assembler after Foxconn….
Google Contractors Allege Company Prevents Them From Whistleblowing, Writing Silicon Valley Novels
Google contract employees are alleging the company’s confidentiality agreements prevent them from a range of legal rights from whistleblowing to telling their parents how much they make, according to a recent court filing. From a report: A California appeals court recently discussed a lawsuit accusing Google and one of its staffing firms, Adecco, of violating a number of California labor laws,…
Is Twitter Shifting the Balance of Power From Companies to Their Employees?
Last week leaked audio surfaced of investors arguing that journalists have too much power. But the Verge’s Silicon Valley editor asks, “What if you take the whole discussion of “tech versus journalism” and reframe it as ‘managers versus employees’? Then, I think, you get closer to the truth of what’s going on.”
After all, this conflict started with employees. They were the…
Eight Amazon Workers Have Now Died from Covid-19
The Los Angeles Times tells the story of 63-year-old Harry Sentoso, an Amazon warehouse worker who was called back to work on March 29th — and died two weeks later of Covid-19. Across the country, Amazon workers have documented more than 1,000 cases among warehouse workers as of May 20, and 7 deaths. Sentoso is the eighth…. The company has put…
Amazon Fires Two Tech Workers Who Criticized Warehouse Conditions
phalse phace writes: Following the termination of Chris Smalls for leading a warehouse strike over poor coronavirus safety conditions, Amazon has fired two more employees who were outspoken critics of the company’s climate policies and who had denounced worker conditions at its warehouses as unsafe during the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: User experience designers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, both…
Hospitals Tell Doctors They’ll Be Fired If They Speak Out About Lack of Gear
schwit1 shares a report from Bloomberg, commenting: “And the claim that this is about protecting ‘patient privacy’ is b***shit.” From the report: Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told Friday he was out of a job because he’d given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate…
Amazon Fires Worker Who Led Strike Over Virus
Chris Smalls, an Amazon fulfillment center employee, said the company fired him after he led a strike at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, over coronavirus safety conditions. “Taking action cost me my job,” Smalls said Monday in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Because I tried to stand up for something that’s right, the company decided to retaliate against me.” Bloomberg…
The Gig Workers For Target’s Delivery App Hate Their Algorithmically-Determined Pay
In 2017 Target bought a same-day home-delivery company called Shipt for $550 million. Shipt now services half of Target’s stores, reports Motherboard, and employs more than 100,000 gig workers. Unfortunately, they’re working for a company that “has a track record of censoring and retaliating against workers for asking basic questions about their working conditions or expressing dissent,” reports Motherboard. For example,…