工廠使用學生工折射出中國勞動力缺口

The admission from Apple supplier Foxconn that students worked illegal overtime at its iPhone manufacturing plant underscores how Chinese companies are turning to schools to fill gaps in the country’s labour force.

蘋果(Apple)供應商富士康(Foxconn)承認有學生在其iPhone製造工廠違法加班，明確顯示出中國企業正在藉助學校填補該國的勞動力缺口。

The FT has spoken to six people who said they were part of a cohort of 3,000 student interns from Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School sent on compulsory “work experience” at the local Foxconn facility. There they assembled iPhones — a task that had nothing to do with their studies to become train attendants and railway managers.

英國《金融時報》採訪了6個人，他們說，鄭州城軌交通中等專業學校(Zhengzhou Urban Rail Transit School)有3000名學生被派往當地富士康工廠獲得必需的“工作經驗”，他們也在其中。在那裏，他們的工作是組裝iPhone，而他們在學校學習的是如何成爲乘務員和城市軌道運營管理師。

Foxconn confirmed the Zhengzhou students “did work overtime in violation of our policy”. Students are banned under Chinese law from working overtime.

富士康證實稱，鄭州那些學生“確實加班工作，違反了我們的政策”。中國法律禁止學生加班工作。

Such companies are resorting to employing students as Chinese manufacturers wrestle with rising wages and the difficulty of finding flexible workers.

眼下，中國製造業企業正在艱難應對工資上漲和難以找到靈活勞動力的問題。

The sectors most likely to abuse student labour are the electronics and textiles industries, according to the Center for Child Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Beijing-based charity found that 14 of the 24 electronics factories it surveyed said they used student workers.

關注兒童權利和企業社會責任問題的瑞聯稚博(CCR CSR)稱，電子產品和紡織是最可能濫用學生工的行業。這家在北京設有辦事處的機構發現，在其調查的24家電子產品工廠裏，有14家表示使用過學生工。

China’s local governments are under pressure to supply flexible labour to factories to stop employers relocating their facilities to other Asian countries. At the same time, Beijing is aware that young people must be educated to a higher standard if the country is to shed its low-cost tag and compete globally.

中國地方政府面臨着向工廠提供靈活勞動、以防止企業把工廠遷至其他亞洲國家的壓力。同時，中國政府知道，如果想讓本國甩掉低成本的標籤、參與全球競爭的話，那就必須提高青年人的教育程度。

Scott Rozelle, co-director of the Rural Education Action Program at Stanford University, says the compulsory recruitment of student interns into factories is widespread across China. “It’s not just Foxconn sending students to factories but the whole of China,” he says.

斯坦福大學(Stanford University)農村教育行動項目(Rural Education Action Program)聯席主任羅斯高(Scott Rozelle)表示，強迫學生進入工廠實習的現象在中國各地非常普遍。“把學生送進工廠的不只是富士康，整個中國都在這麼做。”他說。

He fears the tension between China’s rising wealth and its inadequate education system will have serious consequences. “Kids aren’t learning in these internships?.?.?.?China is going to collapse if its human capital continues to be so bad and so unequal.”

他擔心，中國不斷增加的財富與其不勝任的教育系統之間的矛盾，將產生嚴重後果。“孩子們沒有在這類實習中學到東西……如果人力資本如此糟糕、如此失衡的局面延續下去，那麼中國將走向崩潰。”

Ms Yang, an 18-year-old secondary school student, told the FT that she and the other interns worked 11-hour days assembling Apple’s new iPhone X.

一位18歲、姓楊（音譯）的女中學生告訴英國《金融時報》，她和其他實習生每天工作11小時，組裝蘋果新推出的iPhone X手機。

“If I don’t stay [at Foxconn] I won’t graduate school, but my body can’t take it,” says Ms Yang, who declined to give her full name for fear of being identified. “My mum says if I can’t stand it, maybe I can leave school and work with my dad.”

“如果我不呆在（富士康），我就畢不了業，但我身體受不了這個。”這位楊姓女生說，“我媽媽說，要是我受不了，也許我可以退學，然後跟我爸一起幹活。”她拒絕透露全名，害怕被人認出來。

If she did drop out of education, it would add to a trend that threatens Beijing’s target of a 90 per cent enrolment rate for upper-secondary education by 2020.

如果她當時真的退學了，那將是爲一種不利於中國政府實現如下教育目標的趨勢做貢獻：到2020年高中階段教育毛入學率達到90%。

In 2016, only 9.3m students graduated from China’s upper-secondary schools, less than two-thirds of that age cohort, according to official statistics.

官方統計數據顯示，2016年，中國高中畢業人數僅爲930萬人，低於該年齡組總人數的三分之二。

Economists believe China must upgrade its workforce to avoid falling into the “middle income trap” — where a country’s growth fizzles out before it becomes prosperous.

經濟學家認爲，中國必須進行勞動力升級才能避免落入“中等收入陷阱”——這是指一個國家還未達到富裕水平就停止了增長。

The country has expanded its vocational schooling as part of its Made In China 2025 industrial policy. But with no national assessment of teaching quality, those schools have become a source of flexible labour for local factories.

作爲“中國製造2025”產業政策的一部分，中國擴大了職業教育規模。但由於對教學質量缺乏國家考覈，這些學校已成爲當地工廠彈性勞動力的一個來源。

“Improving the quality of vocational education is necessary to address the major changes and contradictions in Chinese society,” Zhang Laiming, vice-minister of the State Council’s Development Research Center, said at a recent forum organised by JPMorgan in Beijing.

在摩根大通(JPMorgan)最近於北京舉辦的一場論壇上，國務院下屬發展研究中心(Development Research Center)副主任張來明表示：“提升職業教育發展質量是適應中國社會主要矛盾變化的必然選擇。”

He said the quality of vocational school tuition in China was poor and that vocational education was looked down upon by employers and parents. Thirty-six per cent of China’s new workers are from vocational schools.

他說，中國的職業學校教育質量不高，僱主和家長都瞧不起職業教育。中國36%的新入職工人來自職業學校。

In response to abuses of student interns from vocational schools, the government has passed laws limiting the use of students to less than six months and has banned overtime. But Yang Po, an associate professor at Peking University, says schools have “faced big challenges in adjusting to these laws”.

爲了應對濫用職業學校實習生的問題，政府已經通過了相關法律，將學生的實習時間限制在6個月以內，並且禁止他們加班工作。但北京大學(Peking University)副教授楊釙表示，職業學校“在調整做法、以適應這些法律方面面臨巨大挑戰”。

SACOM, the Hong Kong-based workers’ rights group, earlier this year found that tech groups Acer and Fujitsu sourced their goods from such students. SACOM claims that students comprised about half of the workers on assembly lines at a Quanta Computer factory in Chongqing that supplies Acer and Fujitsu.

香港維護勞工權益組織“大學師生監察無良企業行動”(SACOM)今年早些時候發現，科技集團宏碁(Acer)和富士通(Fujitsu)的產品就出自此類學生之手。SACOM指稱，在廣達電腦(Quanta Computer)位於重慶的一家工廠，裝配線上約一半的工人都是學生。這家工廠爲宏碁和富士通供貨。

Quanta Computer, the world’s biggest laptop manufacturer, said: “We have treated the allegations seriously and hence strongly demanded our agents to ensure the justifiability of their labour sources.”

全球最大筆記本電腦製造商廣達電腦表示：“我們對這些指控非常重視，因此已態度堅決地向我們的代理商提出要求，讓它們確保合法使用勞工。”

Acer confirmed student workers are used in some factories to “ease labour pressure”, while Fujitsu declined to comment on the Quanta factory. Both companies said they insisted on adherence to local laws when selecting suppliers.

宏碁證實，一些工廠的確在使用學生工“緩解人手壓力”，而富士通拒絕就廣達電腦那家工廠置評。兩家公司都表示，在選擇供應商時，它們都堅持一點：必須遵守當地法律。

Of the student interns working illegal overtime at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, Apple said: “We have confirmed the students worked voluntarily, were compensated and provided benefits, but they should not have been allowed to work overtime.”

針對富士康鄭州工廠實習生違法加班的問題，蘋果表示：“我們已經確認，這些學生是自願工作的，他們得到了報酬和福利，但他們不應獲准加班。”

After the FT published the Zhengzhou plant story on Tuesday, all student interns were removed from overtime duty, according to a Foxconn employee at the facility.

該廠一名富士康員工表示，英國《金融時報》週二刊發關於富士康鄭州工廠的報道後，所有實習生都已被撤下加班名單。

Ms Yang has now left the factory and returned to her school dormitory, where she awaits her teachers’ decision on whether she will be punished for her departure or told to return to Foxconn with next year’s students.

楊同學現在已經離開該廠，返回了學校宿舍，她正在等待老師的決定——或因離廠而受到處罰，或是被告知與明年的學生一起返回富士康。

“[Student labour] is also the problem of the rigidity and backwardness of the school system, and of the labour market,” says a Foxconn manager. “It is the problem of the whole system.”

“（學生勞動力）既是學校體制僵化和落後造成的問題，也是勞動力市場的問題。”富士康一名管理人員表示，“這是整個體制的問題。”