CLW in labor dispute with former employee

A former employee of an affiliated agency of China Labor Watch (CLW) in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, accused the group of firing him unreasonably without paying due salaries, Southern Metropolis Daily reported.

Zhou Xiaoming said he was employed by Shenzhen Zhuoyue Zhisheng Enterprise Management Consulting agency in April 2014 as a legal advisor and inspector to check if there were problems concerning safety, the environment and illegal employment in factories.

In November last year he was sent to HEG Technology in Huizhou, Guangdong province to investigate whether there was a child labor problem within the company. A month later he was dismissed without explanation

HEG is an electronics supplier to Samsung, Oppo, Huawei and TCL.

Zhou later filed a claim to a labor arbitration committee, demanding the company pay compensation for illegally laying him off.

The agency said Zhou was fired because he proffered fake invoices and used the company's phone for personal affairs, which was denied by Zhou.

Zhou also questioned the investigative report provided by CLW earlier his year, which said HEG employed underage workers.

He told Southern Metropolis Daily there are some discrepancies between the investigative report and what he found.

"I have never found the employment of child labor in HEG Technology after going into deep investigations," Zhou said, adding he doubted the truth of CLW's report.

CLW would not give investigative employees extra rewards if they couldn't find "problems" at the factories under investigation, according to Zhou.

As a result, some inspectors were forced to exaggerate or even fabricate "problems" as it is in this way that they were able to get more money, Zhou said.