Apple says the death of a 15-year Pegatron worker was not linked to working conditions at the factory, reports Reuters.
On
October 9th, Shi Zhaokun, a 15-year worker who had forged
identification papers saying he was 20, was unable to make it to work
and checked into a hospital. Soon after, he was pronounced dead of
pneumonia.
Mr. Shi was one was of five sudden deaths at the factory, leading China Labor Watch to blame working conditions at Pegatron.
“Considering
the sudden deaths of five people and the similar reason of the deaths,
we believe there should be some relations between the tragedy and the
working conditions in the factory,” said Li Qiang, who runs China Labor
Watch.
Apple sent a medical delegation to investigate the
incident and found no link between the working conditions at the factory
and the boy's death.
"Last month, we sent independent medical
experts from the U.S. and China to conduct an investigation of the
(Pegatron) factory," Apple said in a statement on Thursday. "While they
have found no evidence of any link to working conditions there, we
realize that is of little comfort to the families who have lost their
loved ones."
"Apple has a long-standing commitment to providing a
safe and healthy workplace for every worker in our supply chain, and we
have a team working with Pegatron at their facility to ensure that
conditions meet our high standards."
Pegatron had already
concluded the death was not related to work, saying the assembly line
environment should not cause pneumonia.
"Pegatron has strict
measures in place to verify workers' ages before and after they are
hired, and we work with health and safety experts to provide a safe
working environment for each and every worker," Pegatron said.
No comments:
Post a Comment