Apple chief: Panorama report on Chinese workers deeply offensive
|
Version 0 of 1. The head of Apple, Tim Cook, has said he is deeply offended by allegations made in a BBC Panorama programme that the technology company mistreats workers at its Chinese factories. The programme, which sent undercover reporters into the Pegatron factories near Shanghai, where Apple’s iPhones and iPads are assembled, claims to have uncovered instances of poor treatment, including breaching rules on worker hours. In an email to more than 5,000 UK staff, Apple’s senior vice-president of operations, Jeff Williams, said: “Tim and I are deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way.” The email said Apple monitored the hours of more than 1 million workers in its factories, and that the facilities achieved an average of 93% compliance with 60-hour working-week limits. The BBC report alleges that workers fell asleep during 12-hour shifts on the iPhone 6 production line, and some were made to work 18 days in a row, with requests for days off denied. “Panorama’s report implied that Apple isn’t improving working conditions. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth,” the email said, before suggesting that information Apple gave to the BBC about its human rights commitments were “clearly missing from their programme”. “We know of no other company doing as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions, to discover and investigate problems, to fix and follow through when issues arise, and to provide transparency into the operations of our suppliers.” The BBC report alleged that it found illegal tin from mines in Indonesia where children were working could be making its way into the Apple supply chain. “Apple has publicly stated that tin from Indonesia ends up in our products, and some of that tin likely comes from illegal mines,” Williams said. “Tens of thousands of artisanal miners are selling tin through many middlemen to the smelters, who supply to component suppliers, who sell to the world. The government is not addressing the issue, and there is widespread corruption in the undeveloped supply chain. Our team visited the same parts of Indonesia visited by the BBC, and of course we are appalled by what’s going on there. “Apple has two choices: We could make sure all of our suppliers buy tin from smelters outside of Indonesia, which would probably be the easiest thing for us to do and would certainly shield us from criticism. But it would be the lazy and cowardly path, because it would do nothing to improve the situation for Indonesian workers or the environment since Apple consumes a tiny fraction of the tin mined there. We chose the second path, which is to stay engaged and try to drive a collective solution.” Williams pointed to Apple’s work within the tin mining community to try to improve working conditions. “We spearheaded the creation of an Indonesian Tin Working Group with other technology companies. Apple is pushing to find and implement a system that holds smelters accountable so we can influence artisanal mining in Indonesia. It could be an approach such as ‘bagging and tagging’ legally mined material, which has been successful over time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are looking to drive similar results in Indonesia, which is the right thing to do.” The Pegatron factory said it would carefully investigate the BBC’s claims before “all necessary actions” were taken. |