Apple says child labor found at suppliers

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Apple says child labour found at suppliers - FT.com http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8af2a286-6754-11e2-8b67-00144...

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.”