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Apple Responds to Labor Accusations

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the due-diligence dept.

jlaxson writes "Back in June, a number of accusations were leveled at Apple regarding labor practices in its overseas manufacturing and assembly plants. At the time, Apple denied the allegations and said that it would launch an investigation. Today, the results of the investigation were released. From the report: 'We found the supplier to be in compliance in the majority of the areas audited. However, we did find violations to our Code of Conduct, as well as other areas for improvement that we are working with the supplier to address. What follows is a summary of what we've learned, what's already being done in response, and our commitment to future diligence and action.'"

4 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Electronic Industry Code of Conduct by reporter · · Score: 4, Informative
    In 2004, HP, Dell, and IBM developed the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC) in cooperation with key component suppliers: Celestica, Flextronics, Jabil, Sanmina SCI, and Solectron. The EICC is a standard of corporate social responsibility (e.g., treating employees well) that IBM and other systems companies expect from their suppliers. In other words, IBM will do business with only those Vietnamese electronics suppliers which abide by the EICC.

    The current list of companies subscribing to the EICC includes Apple.

    Look carefully at the list. It is revealing. The only systems companies in that list are based in North America, Europe, and Japan. Acer (a Taiwanese systems house) and Samsung (a Korean systems house) are absent from that list. The only Taiwanese company on that list is Foxconn, a component supplier. Doubtless, tough pressure from IBM and other Western companies essentially "forced" Foxconn to comply with the EICC; otherwise, these Western companies would have dumped Foxconn as a supplier of PC connectors.

    No one should be surprised over Apple management's commitment to investigating allegations of worker abuse in Apple's supply chain. Apple is committed to the EICC and demands that its suppliers treat their employees well.

    If you had presented allegations of worker abuse to either Acer or Samsung, their managers would have arranged for security to throw you out of their offices.

    These days, with laptops and desktops becoming indistinguishable commodities, I use corporate social responsiblity as the deciding factor in my purchases. I will also prefer an Apple laptop over an Acer laptop.

    1. Re:Electronic Industry Code of Conduct by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Informative

      And it just so happens that the two best quality laptop builders are Apple and IBM (now Lenovo, not sure how things will change).

      Apple doesn't build laptops - they have them made for them by Asustek (mostly), using cheap asian labour.

      Interestingly, Asustek is not on the linked list.

      --
      There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
  2. Also... by Slaryn · · Score: 2, Informative

    We have to keep in mind that Apple's Code of Conduct != the law (though it may to them). Looks like they're not really breaking any rules here... just employee backs.

  3. Re:Glad to be an American. by p0tat03 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Funny, 'cos I could've sworn the engineers that worked at my last place of employment regularly did 80h, unpaid OT, and regularly worked weekends too. Glad to see the Chinese "sweatshop" labour beats out good old fixed-salary American employment!