Foxconn accused of forcing students to assemble the PS4

Foxconn has found itself in hot water once again with regards to its labor practices. However, this time it isn’t in relation to the production of Apple’s devices. Instead, it’s how the manufacturing company is going about assembling the PS4 that has come under fire.

According to Chinese newspaper Oriental Daily News, Foxconn isforcing thousands of students from the Xi’an Institute of Technology to assemble Sony’s next gen console, which launches on November 15.

The students involved were offered internships at the company while studying an IT engineering course. But those that accepted aren’t being assigned work that matches their course or skill set. Instead, they are being put on the production lines.

The reason it is being called a forced internship is because if any of the students refuse to do the work they are assigned, six credits will be deducted from their course total. Without those six credits it’s thought to be impossible to pass, meaning the students have to do the work or risk losing their qualification.

The assigned tasks range from gluing parts of the console together to placing stickers on it or boxing up the cables that ship with the machine. And they are doing this all day every day just like full-time employees at Foxconn are paid to do. The difference being, the students aren’t being paid.

Because of the way this is setup Foxconn can and is claiming the students aren’t being forced to work and can leave at any time. That may be true, but if they do leave they would be throwing away any chance of getting their IT engineering qualification, which makes it more likely they’d end up back on the production lines full time.

If true, then both Foxconn and Xi’an Institute of Technology are at fault here. There will be people at both the company and college that know exactly what is happening here, and there may even be money changing hands to make it happen. But unless it is proved illegal it seems unlikely to stop.

As for Sony’s involvement in this, they are just the customer, but on hearing about should practices they will hopefully react and threaten to move manufacturing elsewhere unless the situation changes quickly.