Chinese Supplier of Samsung and Lenovo Denies Child Worker Allegations

Once again accusation of child labour has hit the headlines in the tech industry, and this time it’s a supplier of Samsung and Lenovo. The Huizhou-based factory of supplier HEG Technology has been accused by watchdog China Labor Watch of having under-age children working as well as underpaid students.

HEG Technology as well as Samsung and Lenovo all deny these accusations. Samsung said in a statement that they had neither children nor students working on the Samsung production lines at the mentioned factory, as it was accused of by the New York-based watchdog group. A Lenovo spokesperson said the company would look into the report.

China Labor Watch said in a statement that it had found more than 10 children working at the HEG factory during an investigation in July and August as well as over 100 student workers who were not being paid overtime wages or a night shift subsidy.

An employee surnamed Zeng at HEG Technology’s human resources department told Reuters the company had never hired children and it has facial recognition systems in place to ensure workers were not under age. HEG only employs workers above 18 for Samsung products and above 16 for Lenovo’s production lines. The company relies on an outsourcing company to hire students, she added.

Samsung has offered to conduct a joint investigation, on site, for a more precise verification of the allegations and has also informed the watchdog group of it’s own findings in independent investigations, but have not gotten any reaction from CLW. “We find it regrettable that CLW issued the allegations today without any mention of our statement,”.

This isn’t only an issue in the world of technology and it branches into any manufactured product. It’s great that we have the watchdog groups watching out for the ones that don’t have the option themselves, but they also need to be very careful with their allegations and the proof to back them up.

Thank you Reuters for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Samsung and Lenovo.