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Apple Faces New China Worker Abuse Claims
AmiMoJo writes "Technology giant Apple is facing fresh allegations of worker rights violations at Chinese factories of one of its suppliers, the Pegatron Group. China Labor Watch has alleged that three factories of Pegatron violate a 'great number of international and Chinese laws and standards.' These include underage labour, contract violations and excessive working hours. Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, claimed that 'our investigations have shown that labour conditions at Pegatron factories are even worse than those at Foxconn factories.' The campaign group said that it had found that average weekly working hours in the three factories investigated by it were approximately 66 hours, 67 hours, and 69 hours, respectively."
"All the false reporting" was one nutjob who was confusing journalism with stage performance.
No it's not. It's tons of reports about factories in China that are talking generally about everything a factory works on, without distinguishing the parts that are actually having Apple products produced - because Apple has standards about worker treatment that few other companies have.
At Pegatron, over 10,000 underage and student workers (interns), from 16 to 20 years of age, work in crowded production rooms
Note they never claim those are places where Apple products are being worked on. It's easy to imaging that a factory would meet Apple's factory conditions in one facility but not in a building assembling products for other companies that don't impose standards for workers.
Just like with Daisy or Greenpeace or the other people that have made allegations about factories in China, they all attach the Apple name to get attention even if Apple is not involved. Daisy was not a "nutjob", he was just less careful than others doing the same thing.
From the very article in question, Apple says:
"However, Apple disputed those claims, saying that it had closely tracked working hours at all of these facilities."
Apple is in far better position to know what actual hours worked are than a third party group.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As usual, when something negative is uttered about Apple, it's BasilBrush to the rescue.