Eindhoven-based chip company NXP is forcing workers in its overseas factories to work too long and undermining local trade unions.

The accusation comes in a report published on Tuesday by the Dutch multinational research institute Somo and GoodElectronics and quoted by the NRC. Both organisations are involved in trying to improve working conditions in low-wage countries.

Somo reports that the workers, mainly women, in the Philippines and Thailand are forced to work overtime and on official national holidays. In Thailand, there are also too few measures for safeguarding the workers, according to Somo. In both countries, NXP is at odds with local unions.

The report is published on the day NXP is holding its shareholders meeting and the company is ‘unpleasantly surprised’ by its findings. ‘Worker satisfaction in those factories has risen,’ NXP says. A 12-hour day, about which the unions complain, is standard in the chip making industry, the company says.

NXP has 27,000 workers, 3,000 of whom work in the Netherlands.