

Apple says child labor found at suppliers - gjenkin
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8af2a286-6754-11e2-8b67-00144feab49a.html

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gjenkin
Full article (if behind pay wall)

Apple says child labour found at suppliers - FT.com
[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8af2a286-6754-11e2-8b67-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8af2a286-6754-11e2-8b67-00144feab49a.html#axzz2J5mPh6cD)

Apple found 11 facilities across its supply chain using child labour last
year, the iPhone maker said in its annual “Supplier Responsibility” report.
The California-based company, which has stepped up its auditing efforts in the
past year under chief executive Tim Cook, said it had uncovered 106 “active
cases” of children being employed by its suppliers over the course of 2012,
and 70 people who had been underage and either left or passed the age of 16 by
the time of its audit. None of those individuals is still employed by the
suppliers, after Apple worked with its partners to help them spot fake
identification documents or falsified records. In one extreme case, 74 of
those 106 under-16s were employed by a single Chinese manufacturer of circuit-
board components used in Apple products. A large local labour agency
“knowingly” supplied the children, Apple said. Apple terminated its
relationship with the supplier and reported the labour agency to the local
authorities, who fined it and suspended its licence. “Our approach to underage
labour is clear: We don’t tolerate it, and we’re working to eradicate it from
our industry,” Apple wrote in its report. “When we discover suppliers with
underage workers or find out about historical cases … we demand immediate
corrective action.” As Apple extends its audits deeper into its supply chain,
prevention of underage labour and juvenile worker protection were the only two
categories among its eight human rights auditing criteria where violations had
increased since the previous year. Apple found improvements among its
suppliers during 2012 in areas such as anti-discrimination, freedom of
association and wages. The Cupertino-based company is one of the few consumer
electronics groups to publish detailed audits into its supply chain. Overall
it found that just under a quarter of its suppliers failed to comply with its
labour and human rights standards, with other breaches including 11 facilities
using bonded labour.

We don’t allow suppliers to act unethically or in ways that threaten the
rights of workers – even when local laws and customs permit such practices -
Apple As it tries to reduce excessive working hours, Apple said that 92 per
cent of weeks worked by 1m employees tracked across its supply chain met its
weekly criteria of a maximum of 60 work hours and at least one day off. That
figure marks an improvement from 38 per cent a year ago, while Apple said that
it had changed some of the ways it measured working hours to be “more
meaningful and effective”. Overtime increased among Apple’s suppliers during
September, October and November, when Apple was ramping up production of its
new iPhone 5 and iPad mini, but decreased again in December. “We don’t allow
suppliers to act unethically or in ways that threaten the rights of workers –
even when local laws and customs permit such practices,” Apple said. “We’re
working to end excessive work hours, prohibit unethical hiring policies, and
prevent the hiring of underage workers.”

