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Apple investigating reports of student workers in factories (again)
Apple is investigating reports that one of its parts suppliers is illegally using high school students on its assembly line. Hong Kong-based human rights group Sacom alleges that Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta Computer has been skirting labor laws by using teenage "interns" to assemble the Apple Watch Series 4.
Apple, Samsung and Sony linked to child labor in Africa
A new report from Amnesty International claims that some of the world's biggest technology and automotive companies are failing to check whether cobalt mined by children is being used in their products. Its joint investigation with African Resources Watch (Afrewatch) suggests that Apple, Huawei, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung and Sony are linked to the sale of cobalt used in lithium batteries in smartphones, notebooks and tablets, from mines in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where children as young as seven are put to work.
Apple drops supplier over underage labor violations, hails 'high compliance' with reducing excessive work hours
Apple's latest Supplier Responsibility Report has just been published, detailing 393 audits focused on the plants and suppliers that help make all that hardware. The audit number is a 72 percent increase in what it covered in its last annual report, while Apple was also quick to highlight its contracting companies' high compliance (92 percent) with a maximum 60-hour work week. Senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams told Reuters that underage workers and limiting working hours were two of the most challenging issues it faced in its supplier audits. Apple decided to end business relations with component maker Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics over underage labour issues. "We go deep in the supply chain to find it," said Williams. "And when we do find it, we ensure that the underage workers are taken care of, the suppliers are dealt with." Update: As 9 to 5 Mac noticed, the supplier report also contains another notable detail: it lists Freemont, California-based Quanta Computer as one of Apple's final assembly facilities.
Foxconn admits child labor laws breached by use of underage interns
Foxconn has admitted that it employed underage interns in breach of China's child labor laws. An internal investigation at its Yantai factory found some of the young trainees were aged 14- and 15-years old (16 being the legal minimum). In a statement received by CNET, the company advised that "this is not only a violation of China's labor law, it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions." This comes as a further blow to the firm's employment record, after recent riots breaking out and strikes over iPhone 5 quality standards. These interns were sent to the facility from schools, with Foxconn carrying out full investigations with the relevant educational bodies to try to work out how this was allowed to happen. The tech manufacturer has been keen to accept responsibility for its part in the situation, advising strong action will be taken against any full-time members of staff found to have played a part in the breach.
Apple supplier audit reveals sub-minimum wage pay and records of underage labor
Apple's famous desire for total control over its operations seems to have extended to its manufacturing facilities as we've come across Cupertino's Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report, which details audits the American company has done of its overseas suppliers and the failures identified therein. The findings are pretty damning on the whole, with more than half (54 percent) of all factories failing to meet Apple's already inflated maximum 60-hour work week, 24 percent paying less than the minimum wage, 37 percent failing to respect anti-discrimination rules, and three facilities holding records of employing a total of eleven 15-year olds (who were over the legal age of 16 or had left by the time of the audit). Apple is, predictably, not jazzed about the situation, and has taken action through train-the-trainer schemes, threats of business termination with recidivist plants, and -- most notably -- the recovery of $2.2 million in recruitment fees that international contract workers should not have had to pay. 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.
