Apple's latest supplier responsibility report details COVID safety measures, company found no cases of forced labor or child workers - 9to5Mac (2024)
Apple has released its latest annual supplier responsibility report. The document details Apple’s rigorous and comprehensive safety policies that were implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, several publications found alleged incidents of forced labor in Apple’s supply chain. In the company’s report today, Apple says it found no evidence of forced labor or underage child labor. This is down from one case of child labor identified in the previous year’s report.
Apple COO Sabih Khan provides the introduction for the report, saying that Apple worked hand-in-hand with suppliers to redesign processes with maximum care for people’s health as the pandemic struck. This included rearranging factory floors to enable social distancing, changes to working hours to reduce the number of people on-site at a time, deep cleaning protocols and more.
Apple says the things it has learned from the last year have contributed to new policies on infectious disease preparedness and response, which it will uphold for the long term.
Despite lockdowns and global safety measures limiting travel, Apple says it conducted 1121 supplier assessments across 53 countries last year. The company reiterated it has zero tolerance for forced labor of any kind, and said in 2020 its audits found no evidence of involuntary labor.
In addition to worker wellbeing and safety, Apple continues pushing suppliers to improve their environmental performance. Apple says it helps suppliers reduce energy use by identifying hotspots in factories including replacing outdated heating and cooling systems. Apple says six participating suppliers saw iPhone manufacturing emerge use fall by 20 percent over the last three years. Apple has launched similar programs to cut energy use in the AirPods, iPad and Apple Watch supply chains.
The Cupertino, California-based firm said improvements include a reduction in major violations of its code of conduct and no cases of child labor. The 113-page report covers a range of issues, from the treatment of workers to energy usage and infectious disease policies in the wake of Covid-19.
Apple does not tolerate forced labor. In the more than 50 countries and regions where our suppliers operate, we have teams of experts, including independent third- parties, who monitor our suppliers and put in place industry-leading procedures to help verify that no one is forced to work.
Apple's suppliers are required to provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, act fairly and ethically, and use environmentally responsible practices wherever they make products or perform services for Apple.
And in December, the Washington Post reported allegations by the Tech Transparency Project that Lens Technology, one of the biggest suppliers of iPhone cover glass, had received thousands of workers from Xinjiang. Apple told the newspaper it found that no Uyghur workers had been transferred to Lens facilities.
Apple has long been criticized over the labor practices of its suppliers, particularly in China but increasingly in other countries including India, where workers at an iPhone factory rioted after accusing management of withholding their pay.
U.S. labor law prohibits policies that could discourage workers from exercising their right to band together to improve working conditions. Apple is facing several pending NLRB complaints, including one claiming the tech giant unlawfully required workers at an Atlanta retail store to attend anti-union meetings.
Chinese government records, videos and local media reports show that the minority Uighurs were sent to work at the company, Lens Technology, by the same agency that supplied minority laborers to Nanchang O-Film Tech, another Apple supplier that was blacklisted by the U.S. last year over its participation in China's ...
CLW's investigation discovered that the problems uncovered in 2020 still exist in the factory. To this day, Foxconn Chengdu enforces a large number of illegal labor practices including the excessive use of dispatch workers, mandatory overtime, workplace bullying and harassment, and recruitment discrimination.
Is Apple's foundry TSMC a sweatshop? TSMC is not a sweatshop. However, there have been allegations of labor violations at some of its factories. In 2017, for example, the Fair Labor Association found that TSMC's plant in Nanjing, China, had violated labor laws by requiring employees to work excessive overtime hours.
What Is Apple's Largest Supplier? One of the largest suppliers for Apple is Foxconn. This Taiwan-based company, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, provides production and manufacturing of Apple's most popular products, including the iPhone.
We hold ourselves and our suppliers to the highest standards to protect the people in our supply chain, and the planet we all share. We uphold that commitment by setting out what is required of our suppliers.
At Apple, we approach everything we do with a deeper level of care and respect for your personal experience. You can sense it in our products, our stores, and also the ways we invest in our employees. It's a recognition of us all as individuals, who thrive when we have the resources that meet our own unique needs.
Apple has deep ties in the country, its second-largest market. But there are signs that Chinese consumers are becoming a harder sell. Meaghan Tobin reported from Taipei, Taiwan; Alexandra Stevenson from Shanghai and Beijing; and Tripp Mickle from San Francisco.
Scale and cost is a large part of why Apple continues to turn to China manufacturing. If the iPhone were produced in the United States, economists estimate that the additional cost of the device would hover around $65.
And Apple enjoyed the ride. The same year China joined the WTO, Apple began manufacturing in China. Since then, China has spent billions on roads, factories, power plants, employee recruitment, and housing, all to help create Apple's supply chain.
Apple on Monday denied most of what is in a report which alleges that the iPhone-maker and its manufacturing partner Foxconn violated Chinese labor law.
During the Covid crisis, Apple learned that putting the majority of its production in one nation weakened its supply chain. Since then, it has been working to fix that problem by encouraging partners to open up in new nations.
These strategies include using just-in-time manufacturing, which helps Apple reduce inventory costs, and using lean manufacturing techniques, which help Apple reduce waste and improve efficiency. Overall, Apple's global supply chain is highly efficient and cost-effective.
A federal appeals court has dismissed a child labor case against major tech companies including Apple and Google. The ruling, released Tuesday, ruled in favor of the tech companies — Google parent company Alphabet, Apple, Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Tesla — and rejected an appeal by former child miners.
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