Analysis
FLA’s Audit of Apple’s Suppliers – the Results (April 2012)
Updates and Sector News
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- » Certification and Markets: An ekobai.com Newsletter (February 2013)
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Apr 2012
Last month we reported on Apple’s support and retention of the Fair Labor Association’s (FLA) standard and services for worker welfare. At the end of March, FLA released the results of its initial audits of Apple’s main contract manufacturing suppliers Foxconn. FLA reports its work uncovered “significant issues”. Many of these issues concerned the amount of time workers spent on the job to meet Apple’s demanding production schedules, and the amount they were paid. Some key issues:
- Average hours worked per week was found to be fifty-six (the legal limit is forty-nine hours a week including overtime).
- Half of the workers reported that they had worked eleven or more days in a row.
- Thirty-three percent of the workers said that they wanted to work more hours, and feared that further restrictions would lead to lower pay.
- While the factory workers make more than the minimun wage in China, sixty-four percent said that their pay was not enough to "cover basic needs."
Apple and Foxconn have admitted issues do exist and pledged to change their practices by 2013.
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