Apple supplier audit reveals sub-minimum wage pay and records of underage labor
By Vlad Savov 
posted February 27th 2010 9:53PM
posted February 27th 2010 9:53PM
It should come as no shock to learn that cheaper overseas factories are cutting illegal corners, but it's disappointing to hear Apple's note that most of the 102 audited manufacturers said Cupertino was the only vendor to perform such rigorous compliance checks. Still, we'll take what we can get and the very existence of this report -- which can be savagely skewed to defame Apple's efforts (as demonstrated expertly by The Daily Telegraph below) -- is an encouraging sign that corporate responsibility is being taken seriously. We hope, wherever your geek loyalties and fervor may lie, that you'll agree Apple's leading in the right direction and that its competitors should at the very least have matching monitoring schemes. They may have to swallow some bad PR at first, but sweeping up the dirty details of where gadgets come from is juvenile and has no place in a civilized world. Hit the source link for the full report.
HAH! No more Apple to my house. No wonder anymore why Apple is making so much profit..
@jmi
lol if your not buying products made with at least a little outsourcing magic than you will basically have nothing.
A tech company based solely in America that follows proper procedures. Well i cant think of any. comment if anybody does
@jmi
Wow. So you're opposed to Outsourcing? Keep fighting the good fight dude....
No economist in his right mind will agree with you, but good luck with that.
@Wesscoast
Yes well, Apple is telling these news by themselves only because they are afraid this is going to be leaked some day. It's less harmful now telling everything is fixed now and "please buy our products now when we fixed child labour" -mantra. This is so hypocritical, it makes me sick. Rotten apple to me now. Apple should have done their work even better..
All macs should be built by hipsters in a factory in Williamsburg and distributed out of a warehouse loft/artspace in the Navy Yards.
Those two chicks are hot...
You know, for being 2x (almost) as much as a "PC" (Windows OS computer), you'd think they could afford to get these made in the U.S.
so this how apple can do ipad for 500 and with these child labours most do it because they hav ehuge familys to feed and you have lots of them starving to death if they work who do you think will pay for them if there dads dead or main worker they dont money off the goverment like some places
There was an audit done years ago wrt iPod production, which revealed massive use of sweatshops. Apple said they'd address the problem. Clearly they have not. Fanboys shouldn't be defending the lack of action regarding an already known problem. "Well, at least Apple does audits" is meaningless if the audits are never acted on.
well thats very interesting, im shocked that the only and the best and proud computer of america is not made in USA. so why is it so freaky expensive then ? First tons of americans dont have money because apple decided that they will go for bargian factories in china but they did not cut the price. so really how much is a mac book pro worth ? max 10 $ to produce ? later dont cry that americans have no buying power, since they have no jobs ...
OK. Lets get real here. You have to assimilate wage and standards. You can't just transplant the fatty mcfatty work situation from the US union effort. It would effect the whole local economy catastrophically. 500 transistor girls make $15/hr and the rest of the thousand year old commune makes .50/day. That sounds real stable. Thats like working at Starbucks down the street for $500/hr while everyone else in the hood is puling in $10. What happens to the loca rent? The price of beer? Say Apple decides to close shop at the violating factories and move elsewhere. Now what. I guess the locals will just go ahead and open their own computer hardware operation. sweet. rejoice.
My guess - someone was about to break a story regarding Apple using child labor. So what does Apple do? They break the story first and put their own twist on it. You're deluding yourself to think that Apple wouldn't pay someone off to get a quote like "Apple is the only company to conduct audits" etc.
You have to question at why Apple would release this. There's certainly a non-altruistic motivation here.
One thing I find telling, the other I find disturbing.
The simple reason that things are so cheap is that so many corners are cut. If this led all companies to inspect and demand, upon threat of termination, that all products be made in compliance with international labor laws then all the gadgets and junk the Western world lives for are gone. I would happily pay the premium.
The thing that I find disturbing is that this is unlikely to happen. Apple can threaten termination, because they will always find a factory willing to work with them. Palm does not have such leverage and makes me wonder the conditions which my Pre was manufactured under. Even if Apple makes perfectly good on correcting all of its supply chain's ills, very few companies will even attempt to make such corrections next to nil will succeed.
Every endbuyer want lower price ....
Every manufacture face labour cost rise and difficult find a labour
Every company want earn a lot of money ( 70% GP, 30% cost ... like a Google Nexus one) sell as higher price , cut down the production cost or OEM cost ( every 3 month cost down 10% ). Also they are haven't any factory, just OEM only .... ( Apple , HP) , why Dell could make a Competitive price ?
that is the result .....
so sad, but it doesn`t matter, as long as i can use my 27" imac, btw without problems" i'm happy
Lets be realistic. The only reason Apple is doing this, is for marketing. Not now, but later. You will see ads all over the place telling you that Apple products are produced in a much more humane way than the products of the competition. I have not the slightest doubt that most of Apples top brass (especially Jobs) could care less about the poor suckers making their products.
HOWEVER. Sometimes the end justifies the means. The result for the workers is what counts. But it doesnt stop there. You will see that certain other countries will become more competitive again once this sort of production control spread to other manufacturers. Cheap production only happens at the expense of the workforce!
Apple is Scum. Jobs will burn in Hell.
It could be a china-man, it don't matter!!
Is this apple first supplier audit !? Big corporation like HP, Dell… are doing this for years now.
No, it's not an innovation from apple.
Publicity, maybe.