Apple on Wednesday released its yearly Supplier Responsibility Report (PDF), detailing external audits made in 2012 at factories where its parts and products are assembled. The company says it will also list the names and addresses of the company's top 200 suppliers.
The report comes from almost 400 audits performed at all levels of the supply chain -- a 72 percent increase from Apple's audits in 2011, the company said. Apple said 92 percent of its suppliers are at compliance with a 60-hour work week.
The report touts improved working conditions, but Apple also goes on the defensive in places. The company makes a point of emphasizing that the labor problems it faces are also those of the industry.
"We're fixing problems and tackling issues that our entire industry faces, such as excessive work hours and underage labor," the company said in the report. "We're going deeper into the supply chain than any other company we know of, and we're reporting at a level of detail that is unparalleled in our industry."
Apple also said it found no cases of underage labor in 2012's inspections. In the report, the company detailed its protocol when such underage labor is found: The worker must be returned to school and the supplier must finance his or her education while continuing to pay the wages earned when he or she was working.
Apple has been under the microscope for its labor practices for a while now. Last year, The New York Times printed a scathing account of some of the working conditions at the factories of some of its suppliers, which ultimately won the paper a Pulitzer Prize. Later that year, Apple became the first tech company to open its supply chain to the Fair Labor Association.
via apple - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNHqmelFavQ6d-CUe9BlkAr7hd_WzQ&url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57614520-37/apple-report-on-suppliers-touts-improved-working-conditions/
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