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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.'"
may not be what is really happening.
IMHO, most audits are scheduled and the management knows about it weeks or even months before the audit. This could buy the management "time" to "instruct" everyone about the audit and do some "beautification". This could also be the time "silence" and "hide" some people too. I'm not saying that the manufacturing facility was dishonest during the audit but given the location of the manufacturing facilities (China), I would not be suprised if they turned out to be dishonest. (who wants to lose a client anyway)
But I really hope that the results of the audit are honest and true for the sake of all those people working there. Minor improvements there could greatly help the welfare of the workers.
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.
(Insert bad robot voice) 'It's not my fault."
Hmmmmmm
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.
And if copy a song from a friend, you fail to comply with all the laws. That doesn't make you a serial killer. If you read the article, you will see what the code of conduct violations were, and how they were/are being addressed.
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)?
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!