Items tagged with labor
A 2013 audit of working conditions at Quanta Computers, a Chinese supplier of Apple products, pointed out various working violations at two factories in China, including excessive overtime and unpaid sick days, among others. Apple has been working with Quanta to address those violations, and to its credit, the Cupertino outfit has made strides in how things are done overseas. "Excessive overtime is not in anyone's best interest, and we will continue to work closely with Quanta and our other suppliers to prevent," Apple said in a statement. "This year, through the end of July, Quanta has average 86 percent compliance with our 60-hour workweek." Image Source: Flickr (Annette Bernhardt) Apple and...
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Working conditions for the people who build the world’s gadgets is an issue that has received increased scrutiny in the wake of recent news coverage. Finding itself in the spotlight for controversies over worker suicides at Chinese suppliers, Apple took steps to ensure suppliers met certain standards for worker rights. Apple’s not the only major company to reevaluate its policies, however, and HP announced today that it has new guidelines for student labor at its suppliers. image credit: flickr.com/photos/dcmaster/ HP's new guidelines are meant to control a practice among Chinese suppliers of bringing in students as interns and giving them heavy workloads at factories. Ever wonder...
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A long, drawn out legal battle with Apple notwithstanding, Samsung has been on a roll lately. It's Galaxy S III recently jumped past 30 million units sold to become the top selling smartphone, surpassing the mighty iPhone. More recently, Samsung said it shipped 5 million Galaxy Note II phone/tablet (phablet) hybrid devices. Life is good, at least on the retail side. As far as manufacturing goes, a recent audit conducted by Samsung revealed several labor violations at supplier plants in China. Underage workers wasn't one of them, but overtime hours in excess of local regulations and the imposition of fines for lateness or absences, along with other "inadequate practices," were uncovered. "We are...
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has accused a company of illegally firing an employee after she criticized her supervisor on Facebook. The NLRB filed the complaint against American Medical Response of Connecticut, an ambulance service. AMR fired Dawnmarie Souza, an EMT, after accusing her of violating a company policy barring employees from depicting the company “in any way” on any social networking site on which they post pictures of themselves. The NLRB's complaint, filed on Oct. 27, was reported by the New York Times, which quoted Lafe Solomon, the board’s acting general counsel, as saying, “This is a fairly straightforward case under the National...
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We've been covering extensively the unfortunate situation at Hon Hai's China plants, which have been rocked in recent months by several employee suicides. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn, makes Apple's iPhone as well as many other prominent tech devices, making it difficult to sweep allegations of worker abuse under the rug. To Foxconn's credit, the company didn't do that, instead vowing to improve worker conditions that may have led to the spate of suicides. Did Foxconn follow through? That depends on who you ask. According to one report based on interviews with more than 1,700 workers, Foxconn still maintains a "militaristic" work environment with long working hours and low wages, Yahoo News...
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After being put under the microscope by the media and, more recently, by its customers following a rash of suicides that occurred at its Shenzhen, China factory, Foxconn said it is issuing another round of significant pay raises, the second time that this has been done this week. According to a report in The New York Times, Foxconn plans to raise basic salaries for most of its 800,000 workers in China to nearly $300 a month within the next 90 days. That's about double what the workers were making just a couple of weeks ago, and also is indicative of rising labor costs in China's biggest manufacturing hubs. Lost in the shuffle of all the suicides that have taken place, market analysts say that...
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The Internet is abuzz this morning over Apple's "2010 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report." In it are some 24 pages detailing the results of Apple's self-imposed audit of all of its suppliers to ensure that each one meets the company's "Supplier Code of Conduct." What has the Internet swarming with activity is this little tidbit:"Apple discovered three facilities that had previously hired 15-year-old workers in countries where the minimum age for employment is 16. Across the three facilities, our auditors found records of 11 workers who had been hired prior to reaching the legal age, although the workers were no longer underage or no longer in active employment at the time of our audit."While...
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Intel, Samsung, and TSMC--big players in the fabrication of semiconductors--have announced that they will be collaborating in order to target an industry-wide transition to 450mm wafers starting in the year 2012. Most semiconductors today are manufactured on 300mm wafers--a transition that started in 2001--which was 10 years after the transition to 200mm wafers. Targeting 2012 as the next transition period keeps "in line with the historical pace of growth." The reasons for this planned transition were spelled out in a joint press release from the three companies:"Historically, manufacturing with larger wafers helps increase the ability to produce semiconductors at a lower cost. The total silicon...
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AMD Collaborates With Microsoft on Windows Server 2008 to Deliver Industry Leading Solution to Customers - Microsoft's New Operating System Paired with AMD Processors Provides a Solid Business Foundation with Better Investment Protection, Low Energy Usage and Unmatched Performance - SUNNYVALE, Calif. - February 27, 2008 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it has worked closely with Microsoft throughout the Windows Server 2008 development process, to deliver the ultimate server solution. Through their strong partnership, both companies have optimized their respective hardware and software technologies to work together to address the demands of today's global digital economy and meet the computing...
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AMD and Microsoft Collaboration Enables World-class Windows Vista Experience - Newly Released ATI Catalyst 7.1 Provides Performance and Stability for Advanced Graphics with New Microsoft Operating System - SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Jan. 29, 2007 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today detailed the hardware and supporting software technologies to deliver the highest levels of performance, stability and application compatibility for Microsoft Windows Vista users. Based on an unprecedented collaboration between Microsoft and AMD, Windows Vista harnesses AMD silicon and software to deliver truly immersive computing experiences, new tools for creating and sharing multimedia content and enhanced capabilities for locating...
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Of course, we're talking about video game sales in 2006. Fine by me. The Department of Labor and NASA aren't nearly as much fun as Madden Football. In all, hardware sales surged 43 percent to $4.6 billion in 2006 and software sales rose 6 percent to $6.5 billion. Sales of accessories jumped 19 percent to $1.5 billion for the year. Total U.S. sales rose 28 percent to $3.7 billion during December, including a 59 percent jump in hardware sales to $1.6 billion and a more than 5 percent increase in software sales to $1.7 billion. Sales of accessories, which include controllers and memory cards for gaming systems, rose 47 percent to $451 million. Read why you only leave the house to buy video...
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Intel Announces Collaboration to Launch Web 2.0 Business Internet Suite SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 7, 2006 - Intel Corporation today announced at the Web 2.0 Conference today that it is collaborating with several software companies on the launch of SuiteTwo, a business Internet suite. The integrated suite, a family of interconnected services combined to improve productivity and enable high-engagement marketing, is comprised of business Web 2.0 capabilities from leading software companies, including Six Apart, Socialtext, NewsGator, SimpleFeed and SpikeSource. Intel Capital, Intel's venture capital organization, pioneered the assembly of this suite. Intel's Software and Solutions Group plans to make...
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Imagination Technologies Announces Expanded Multimedia Collaboration with Intel and Investment from Intel Capital 2 October 2006 - Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE:IMG; "Imagination") - a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP") - today announces that it has reached a new major collaboration agreement with Intel Corporation ("Intel"), which extends the licensing and deployment of its graphics and video IP cores for use with Intel's PC, mobile computing and consumer architectures in certain segments. Imagination also announces an investment by Intel Capital, the venture capital arm of Intel. Intel Capital will invest ?5.28m in Imagination,...
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AMD ANNOUNCES SOCKET COMPATIBILITY PLANS TO DRIVE INDUSTRY COLLABORATION Sunnyvale, Calif. - Sept. 21, 2006 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that its Torrenza Initiative is serving as a collaborative force toward achieving future processor socket compatibility in the server industry. By leveraging the advantages of AMD64 with Direct Connect Architecture and HyperTransport(tm) technology, OEMs will be able to standardize on a Torrenza Innovation Socket for many of their current and future server platforms. This game-changing approach to server design will enable OEMs to consolidate server offerings for multiple processors to potentially a single platform, reducing datacenter disruption...
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Infoworld reports that Sony and Samsung will team up to build the world's most advanced liquid crystal display panel factory. The two companies will invest $1.9 billion (USD) on machinery and equipment for the new LCD panel factory and Samsung will spend an additional 940 million to construct the building. The new factory will be located next to an existing plant in Tangjeong, South Korea. Both plants will be operated by Sony and Samsung's LCD manufacturing joint venture, S-LCD Corp. Sony and Samsung will divide the output of the plant equally and use the panels in their own products. The plant is currently slated to open in late 2007. "Strong worldwide demand...
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Intel, Microsoft Collaborate To Bring Pay-As-You-Go PCs To Millions Of New Users Microsoft FlexGo Technology to be a Key Element of Intel World Ahead Program SEATTLE, May 22, 2006 - Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corp. today announced that the companies will collaborate to engineer and deliver flexible, pay-as-you-go PC purchasing models for consumers in emerging markets. Intel's support of Microsoft FlexGo technology is a key part of Intel's broad World Ahead program to help speed access to uncompromised technology and education for people in developing regions around the world. The collaboration between Microsoft and Intel to implement FlexGo technology is another example of the successful...
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And interesting product has found it's way into the PimpRig labs, a new type of thermal paste. Liquid Metal is the name, and it looks like, well, liquid metal. It's also a bit hard to spread around, as PimpRig found out. They got the paste from a seller on e-bay, so does this stuff actually perform well? "I was shocked when I pulled the cap off the syringe and saw that the needle was still there. I had no idea how the thermal interface material could get through an opening that small until I pressed the plunger slightly over the CPU. A drop of the material came out with no problem and sat there like a ball on the CPU. It was at that point that...
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