Apple’s sweatshop supply chain

Apple’s sweatshop supply chain
By Ben McGrath

US technology giant Apple last month released its annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report, detailing its commitment to improving working conditions in the international network of factories that produce its products.

These yearly reports, which began in 2007, are nothing but a cynical public relations exercise designed to whitewash the company’s image.

The latest report declares that Apple requires its suppliers to “provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes.”

This claim, issued for public consumption in the US and other markets, bears no relationship to the harsh regimes throughout the factories of its suppliers in China and other countries.

Apple’s reputation was undermined in 2010 by a series of suicides at Foxconn, its largest supplier, in which 14 people died.

Young workers jumped to their deaths from factory buildings due to the long hours of exhausting labour, and abusive and humiliating discipline, enforced by Foxconn’s army camp-style management. (See: “Report exposes Foxconn’s oppressive work regime”)

Amid an international outcry, Foxconn president Terry Gou promised higher wages and fewer hours, but the pledge was never implemented. Foxconn could not afford to make concessions because rivals such as Flextronics, BYD and Quanta took advantage of the scandal to poach orders, while maintaining a work regime that was just as exploitative.

Foxconn soon returned to business as usual.

The huge corporation, which employs one million workers in China, moved more of its production lines to inland cities where labour is cheaper.

Workers had to sign a “no suicide” pledge, but the conditions that gave rise to desperation and despair did not change. Last month, 150 workers at its Wuhan plant threatened a collective suicide in protest over unbearable conditions.

The factories are also unsafe. Last May, an explosion in Foxconn’s Chengdu facility, which makes iPads, killed four workers and injured 18. The blast was the result of poor ventilation and a build up of combustible dust.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/appl-f07.shtml