Group said Saturday that it has raised wages by up to 25 percent in the second major salary hike in less than two years,http://ilkdom.com/blogs/posts/kxiokexfo, as the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer comes under intensive scrutiny after a spate of suicides. Foxconn employs about 1 million workers at its massive plants in China that are run with military-like discipline. The workers assemble iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc., Xbox video game consoles for Microsoft Corp. and computers for Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Chinese workers at Foxconn now receive between 1,cheap toms,800-2,toms shoes sale,500 yuan ($285-$400) per month following the raises that became effective Feb. 1, the company said. Foxconn is also taking measures to limit workers' total work hours,http://www.cpashare.com/2008/03/19/co-hosted-the-shoemoney-show-last-night-pretty-cool/, and the raises come as a compensation for their reduced overtime, company spokesman Simon Hsing said in a statement. The announcement came as the U.S. Fair Labor Association is inspecting Apple's Chinese suppliers for their labor practices. Foxconn said it is cooperating with the U.S. inspectors, pledging again to provide workers "a safe and fair work environment." In 2010, a spate of worker suicides at an enormous Foxconn complex in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen drew attention to the stress many young workers faced working in some factories. The company denied allegations that it ran excessively fast assembly lines and demanded too much overtime, but it soon announced two pay hikes that more than doubled basic worker salaries to up to 2,000 yuan per month,http://laohuabbs.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=452783. Last month, dozens of workers assembling video game consoles climbed to a Foxconn factory dormitory roof in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and some threatened to jump to their deaths amid a dispute over job transfers that was later defused. Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ. An insider's guide to politics and policy, available on the iPad or as a PDF download.
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) A minority partner in BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico agreed Friday to pay $90 million in a settlement with the federal government and Gulf states over the 2010 oil spill. It includes the largest civil penalty ever recovered under the federal Clean Water Act. MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC owned 10 percent interest in the Macondo well, about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast. The well blew out in April 2010, destroying the BP-leased rig Deepwater Horizon, killing 11 men and resulting in the nation's worst offshore oil spill. The agreement,cheap toms shoes sale, filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, calls for MOEX to pay $45 million in civil penalties to the federal government and $25 million to the Gulf states affected by the spill. The company also agreed to pay $20 million for coastal protection projects. The Justice Department said the agreement is the largest civil penalty ever recovered under the clean wat