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back to article Child labour, lost wages uncloaked by Apple factories audit

Apple has for the first time released a complete list of its suppliers [PDF], publishing the names of 156 companies who make the parts for everything from Macbook screens to iPad covers. The list includes well-publicised contracts, such as Apple's mega deals with Samsung and LG, as well as more obscure deals with smaller …

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        "Governments should tax import-goods from countries with sub-standard worker conditions"

        An interesting concept, this. It's a bit like taking responsibility for part of another country's taxation and budget. Sort of like, "If you don't do it, consider it offshored to us!"

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      The ONLY mission of an enterprise in capitalism

      is to maximize profit for its shareholders. Nothing else matters.

      That is what they were teaching me in school many decades ago in a (at that time) communist country. Please don't take this as a joke because it really is not.

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  2. Trollslayer
    Thumb Up

    I don't like a lot of things about Apple

    but a big thumbs up for taking a real stand on this.

    So many companies talk the talk but go quiet when money is involved.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      They're not taking a stand on anything

      UN and WHO write these reports on the self same factories year in-year out.

      The fact some apple employee gets to do it as a corporate jolly is beside the point.

      3.whatever million? not even a drop in the apple ocean, if they wanted to "put up" and make a difference they'd open their own factory and kit it out like cuppertino, not just use the "visit" as a PR exercise and ooh, look at us, we're making a token gesture

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  4. Zippy the Pinhead

    Its a simple fix.. start applying an import tax to level the playing field. China itself manipulates its currency to stay the actual bargain it is. So if a company is keeping is cost low by farming out labor to 3rd world countries make them pay an import tax.. Besides that robots themselves can do the job with more accuracy and faster than any human could and using robots would drive the cost down and improve overall product quality and keep the price down. China has a huge labor pool so they force the cost down by using a large pool of underpaid overworked people instead of robots.

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  5. Bad Beaver
    Meh

    each and every day

    I become less likely to buy products that where made in China. I dislike the thought of my lifestyle being supported by slave-like working conditions. Unless you make lots of money this initiates an overall cut-back process, as anyone who recently bought something, anything, made in Japan, the US, the UK or continental Europe will be happy to confirm. And even that stuff is stuffed full of parts sourced in cheap cheap land. I am old enough to remember what I had to cough up for a Powerbook made in Ireland, which was also not too pretty a number, but when the loss of local jobs is spiced with the creeping suspicion of "blood on your iPod" I can only say that … I do not like it. I really do not like it. This from a guy who will be happy to state that globalization is not a bad thing per se and that some chinese companies turn out truly excellent products. I do not want to feel bad about what I buy. We need more transparency. I salute Apple for taking the flag and speaking out on it. Now they better act on it, too.

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  6. Fatman
    FAIL

    Child labour, lost wages uncloaked by Apple factories audit

    Management's response:

    `The beatings shall continue, until the morale improves`.

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  7. harryg123

    Capitalist Morality

    It’s nice that at least some big firms are concerned about their workers, even underpaid one in the (former) worker’s paradise. I just wish that Apple and others would worry more about domestic workers instead of foreign ones.

    USA has more people on the dole and out of work now than ever before in her history. California is bankrupt, and as Calif. goes, so goes the rest of the country, if history repeats. Major reason is unemployment.

    I think it would be good if big business such as Apple would import some jobs back into the USA.

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  8. mccp
    WTF?

    Where did you get £3.6 billion from?

    From the PDF:

    "Continuing our efforts to protect the rights of workers who move from their

    home country to work in our suppliers’ factories, we increased audits in Malaysia

    and Singapore, countries known to be destinations for foreign contract workers.

    As a result, suppliers reimbursed $3.3 million in excess foreign contract worker

    fees, bringing the total that has been repaid to workers since 2008 to $6.7 million."

    Nowhere does it say 3.6 and it looks like it's millions, not billions; Apple also say they made the factories pay it, they didn't pay it themselves.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ah,

    So when the sh te starts to stink, Apple now want to be seen as clean as a baby wipe'd bum!

    Too late, Apple is already smeared in it.

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  10. Death_Ninja
    Megaphone

    To be honest, of all the "big business" Apple should be most able to fix this problem.

    Their product is marketed as a premium product, so increasing their prices to ensure ethical production won't damage their market, it probably will increase it.

    The market space they pitch in doesn't care about penny pinching... unlike some of the others people are saying also have dodgy manufacturing workplaces. A strategy of "fair trade" would be a tag that would boost their credibility to the middle class - the same people who pay twice as much for coffee.

    Unless of course I've completely misunderstood their marketing for the latest iteration of Apple as a company....

    Equally of course, exposure of dodgy labour practices will have a negative effect for exactly the same reasons..

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  11. Jim 59

    Cheap ?

    "In fact, ever thought about why everything you buy is so dirt-cheap and affordable?!"

    Well that's true. Or is it ? You may think trainers are cheap because they come from awful sweatshops. But £60 isn't really cheap, not much cheaper that we paid in 1975 when our trainers were made by highly paid workers in Britain or another western economy. Companies who exploit are probably happy for us to think sweatshop == cheap, but really sweatshop == increased profit margin, with the price staying the same.

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