The Fair Labor Association (FLA) today published findings of Apple supplier audits it conducted last year. The group, who has been performing independent assessments of Apple’s supplier facilities since 2012, assessed Apple facilities in Shanghai and Changshu, China belonging to Apple parter Quanta.
9to5Mac notes the reports highlight issues that range from illegal recruitment policies to health and safety concerns, to violations of underaged employees working overtime.
The audits were previously included in Apple’s 2014 Responsibility Report, with the company asserting that it has been working to improve the conditions at the factories ever since. Apple has made it clear in a statement that it will sever any relationships with companies that do not meet the FLA’s guidelines.
The FLA has made recommendations on how to improve conditions at Quanta, and other suppliers, which has been an increasing focus of Apple in recent years. In addition to working with FLA, and partnering with them for regular audits of partner facilities, Apple has also been regularly releasing its own data related to suppliers.
Apple’s statement, in full, is below:
Our suppliers must live up to the toughest standards in the industry if they want to keep doing business with Apple, which is the first and only technology company to be admitted to the Fair Labor Association. We are committed to providing safe and fair working conditions for everyone in our supply chain.
Last year we conducted 451 comprehensive, in-person audits deep into our supply chain so we could uncover problems and work with our suppliers to fix them. We track and report the weekly working hours for more than 1 million workers, and our 18-month Apple Supplier EHS Academy training program is raising the bar for environment, health and safety management in the industry.
The Quanta facilities inspected by the FLA last year were included in our 2014 Supplier Responsibility report, which we released in February. Our own experts have audited these sites 16 times, most recently last month.
In the year since the FLA’s visit, we have worked closely with Quanta to drive meaningful improvements in areas identified by both the FLA and Apple. Apple conducted four follow-up inspections on top of the annual audits of both facilities, to ensure the needed corrections are in place.
This year, through the end of July, Quanta has averaged 86 percent compliance with our 60-hour workweek. Excessive overtime is not in anyone’s best interest, and we will continue to work closely with Quanta and our other suppliers to prevent it.
