Worker Deaths Raise Questions at an Apple Contractor in China

Last September, a young Chinese laborer named Shi Zhaokun began working long hours at a huge manufacturing plant here that produces Apple’s new iPhone 5C.

But on Oct. 9, Mr. Shi was unable to make it to work and checked into a hospital, his family says. Soon after, he was pronounced dead of pneumonia. Although his identification papers said he was 20, Mr. Shi was in fact just 15.

In China, he was too young to legally work on a factory floor.

The Pegatron Corporation, the Taiwanese manufacturer that employed him, said the workplace environment at the Shanghai plant was not the cause of his illness. But a spokeswoman acknowledged that several other young workers at the factory had also died in the past few months.

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David Barboza, New York Times via CHINA US Focus http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ChinaUsFocus/~3/bJsAz5QljEM/