Apple Responds to Labor Accusations

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.'"

Comments

How many Apple employees in California...

[kingtonm]

work more than 60 hours a week?

Re:How many Apple employees in California...

[jcr]

I sure did, but not year-round.

-jcr

Re:How many Apple employees in California...

[DrXym]

I worked in Mountain View for a while. It wasn't unusual to be leaving at 8pm in the evening. But having said that, I was being paid an enormous salary, the atmosphere and environment was relaxed and there were perks like free food and soda for doing so. I expect Chinese sweatshops don't let their staff lie around on beanbags or play table football when they feel like it.

Working Conditions: Japan Better than USA

[reporter]

In an unusual twist, the working conditions in Japan are now actually better than the working conditions in the USA.

Prior to 2000, stories about death by overwork were not uncommon in Japan. The Japanese government recently enacted a law that effectively limits the amount of overtime that engineers may be forced to work. A recent article by the "New York Times" refers to the issue of limiting overtime.

Other articles commenting on this matter suggest that the law restricts overtime by requiring companies to pay engineers increased wages for each additional hour beyond 8 hours per day. According to one source, each hour of overtime must be paid 125% of standard pay.

Is there any chance that the California government will limit overtime in the same lucrative way (i.e., lucrative for the employees)?

Re:Audits? What they had seen...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Indeed.

On top of that, according to this bbc report, the audit was pretty lax - interviewing just 100 employees from more than 30,000.

Also, we have this report of the audit - but noone knows where the factory is to independantly verify it.

Can we trust Apple? They just denied the initial report - and now it seems there was some violations. Is this report the complete truth?

Re:Glad to be an American.

[Anonymous Coward]

A "normal" workweek maxes out at six days and sixty hours? That's nasty. Things like this remind me how lucky I was to be born in the US.

Until recent generations, 60 hours or more a week was normal in the US, too. Traditionally, Sunday was the only day off; Saturday was just another work day.

Re:Working Conditions: Japan Better than USA

[Elwood P Dowd]

Is there any chance that the California government will limit overtime in the same lucrative way (i.e., lucrative for the employees)?

It already does. If you are paid hourly, you are paid overtime. If you are salaried, you aren't necessarily paid overtime. Salaried employees cannot have their vacation time or paycheck docked if they work less than a full day. (Or, they can, but then they get overtime.)

There are various exceptions, but it's 1.5x base pay