Chinese Students Reportedly Were Pulled From School To Work On iPhones At Foxconn

The iPhone 5 announcement is quickly approaching and Foxconn must really have some major mass production going on currently. According to The Shanghai Daily and China National Radio 200 students were pulled from the Huaiyin Institute of Technology to produce the iPhone 5.

The Shanghai Daily learned later that Foxconn pulled out students from at least five other colleges too. A student was able to verify they are paid $244 monthly for six 12-hour work days a week. The students were actually drove from select colleges to the Foxconn factory and “forced” to work as paid interns.

The Verge has information on these internship programs:

Foxconn’s internship programs came under some fairly harsh criticism in the Fair Labor Association’s Foxconn Investigation report, with interns found to be working much as employees, with long hours and sometimes lax documentation. The FLA document also specifically prescribed a set of changes that Foxconn should make to bring its internship program into compliance, but The Shanghai Daily reports that some schools had simply dropped the program altogether in the wake of the controversies

In a matter of time, The Shanghai Daily furthermore reported that students are now beginning to return to class. All students who applied for the internship can select to stay if they so-choose.

During late August we learned from the FLA that Foxconn has improved factory working conditions. Apparently they haven’t yet added limits to internship work.