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Apple Enforces "Supplier Code of Conduct" After Child Labor Discovery
reporter writes "Since 2006, Apple has regularly audited its manufacturing partners to ensure that they conform to Apple's Supplier Code of Conduct (ASCC), which essentially codifies Western ethical standards with regard to the environment, labor, business conduct, etc. Core violations of ASCC 'include abuse, underage employment, involuntary labor, falsification of audit materials, threats to worker safety, intimidation or retaliation against workers in the audit and serious threats to the environment. Apple said it requires facilities it has found to have a core violation to address the situation immediately and institute a system that insures compliance. Additionally, the facility is placed on probation and later re-audited.' Apple checks 102 facilities, most of which are located in Asia, and these facilities employ 133,000 workers. The most recent audit of Apple's partners revealed 17 violations of ASCC. The violations include hiring workers who were as young as 15 years of age, incorrectly disposing of hazardous waste, and falsifying records. In Apple's recently released Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report (PDF), they condemned the violations and threatened to terminate their business with facilities that did not change their ways."
Hiring 15 year olds is illegal? Quick, someone tell the authorities about McDonalds!
except you know, they dont charge any more than anyone else. There IS NO APPLE TAX anymore. Stop comparing POS computers to a standard Apple configuration and actually you know configure a Dell to match a Apple. You WILL be surprised.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
These conditions are enforced to maximise profit. When citizens of countries working under conditions like these seek redress there is an inevitable violent corporate sponsored government led retaliation against those seeking better conditions. If after extended period of revolution violence better conditions become available, corporation simply shift t the next country to exploit their population.
Trade should not occur upon a basis of exploitation, you are importing those working conditions along with those products, don't think so, then why are corporations and their political puppets continually saying that first world workforces has to compete, not once but over and over again. Are you ready to compete, no sick pay, no holiday pay, 50 cents an hour and, unsafe work conditions as normal practice including toxic chemicals.
It is disgusting to think anyone deems it appropriate to sponsor conditions on workers in other countries that they themselves would not accept. It reeks of greed and lies to assume that somehow poor people in other countries are born to work in poverty, they are bred to be mindless factory drones from birth, cheaper than robots.
Yet look around you, at your fellow migrants, people who escpaed from those conditions who managed to gain a better life, according to you, they couldn't possibly exist because they are happy to be factory slaves so why would they leave.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If my 15 yr old wants some spending cash you bet they can get their butt out on a paper route or babysitting or neighborhood yard work. I have no problem with "child labor" as a concept, it's a great idea on multiple fronts, teaching responsibility, the value of money, the benefits of being employed, etc.
The problem is it's so incredibly easy for big business to abuse, that it has to be outlawed for the most part. The idea is good, the practice is bad. Things like paper routes and babysitting tend to be self-limiting (due to the narrow window of time per day you can actually do them) so they're not really abusable. Manufacturing plants that can run 24/7 naturally are where the problems crop up.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.