Apple Admits To Using Child Labor

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Today, Apple released a 25-page report to investors that detailed their oversight of their OEM manufacturers who produce their popular gadgets and computers. Representatives from Apple traveled to factories in nine countries and discovered some shocking truths, that some of these OEMs used child labor and attempted to falsify records to hide it.

Apple’s team who compiled their “Supplier Responsibility” report traveled to Apple’s factories in China, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the United States. Apple’s team discovered that three factories employed eleven 15-year-old children. While Apple didn’t say what country these child laborers were located in, or what manufacturer ran the facilities, with the sheer majority of their products being produced in China, many speculate it was in that country.

Apple said that it followed up and discovered the eleven children either no longer worked their or had passed the legal age requirement for employment in their countries. Apple also said that they had demanded that the guilty manufacturers do an audit of their employment records and hiring procedures to see how these child workers had gotten jobs.

These manufacturers also ignored another Apple requirement. Apple sets out a 60-hour work week maximum for any factory workers. They found that 55 of the 102 factories producing their devices ignored these polices. Ironically, Apple’s 60-hour maximum violates China’s own legal maximum of 49 hours per work week, but the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports that that law is widely ignored for blue collar workers.

Only 61% of the factories were paying their workers the correct wages. And Apple discovered that 24% of factories were not paying some workers China’s minimum wage.

Another practice that Apple wasn’t fond of was using pay cuts as a disciplinary measure. Cupertino isn’t afraid to drop the hammer on these suppliers, either. They reported cutting relations with one factory after they failed to meet Apple’s requests and tried to falsify records to appease Apple.

Very famously last year, a Foxconn employee committed suicide after being harassed and beaten by his supervisors who thought he stole an Apple prototype. Earlier this year, a Reuters reporter was attacked by Foxconn security guards. Foxconn, is of course, a major Apple supplier.

While it’s commendable that Apple is holding their suppliers to high human rights issues, it would also seem that they’re also pressuring them about security on their devices.