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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that Apple can require that, their sub-contractors can agree and then just pocket the additional cash for it and not do it. Apple must more closely verify the conditions of its Indian subcontractors just like they had to do in China a decade ago.

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Definitely a problem. Bad-faith actors can screw up well intended policies making everyone look bad. Inspectors that verify the work-site conditions help, but can also potentially operate in bad faith. It's a hard problem to "solve", but still likely worth it for a company like Apple, both in regards to PR and ROI.

Apple solved the problem in China with surprise inspections done by independent organizations (e.g. the FLA); e.g. see

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/feb/20/foxconn-r...

The title oddly enough is "Apple faces its 'Nike moment' over working conditions in Chinese factories" from 2012.

One challenge here is that the host government (local, provincial, or national) is often complicit and might not agree to allowing such inspections. In that case, you simply have to be ready to walk away.

Fascinating. TIL. Thanks for the link.

Such a strange situation, where a company has to walk away from letting people work for them because they can't verify their working conditions are good enough. I suppose these are the tricky side-effects of being an international corporation though.

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