With the Fair Labor Association audit of Apple suppliers at Foxconn City underway for several days now, the first details are starting to trickle in. The non-profit agency’s head Auret van Heerden told Reuters that working conditions at Foxconn’s iPad plant are “far better” than those at their factories elsewhere in the country. It is a personal impression and not the official stance, because 30 FLA staff members have three weeks to interview about 35,000 workers at two Foxconn plants in China.
Workers will answer questions anonymously by entering their responses with iPads. Van Heerden was also surprised, he confessed, with how “tranquil” the floor at Foxconn plant is compared with a garment factory.
He speculated that workers are jumping out of windows to take their life due to boredom and alienation stemming from repetitive assembly tasks:
A month ago Apple became the first technology company admitted to the FLA after longstanding Foxconn issues became a mainstream topic of big media. Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed worker safety during yesterday’s speech at the Goldman Sachs conference. Repeating that Apple cares about every worker, Cook said he “spent a lot of time in factories personally” to understand working conditions “at a very granular level.” Cook, a supply chain wizard, talked aggressively that “every worker has the right to a fair and safe work environment, free of discrimination, where they can earn competitive wages, and voice their concerns freely.”
- Chinese customs: iPad too powerful and popular to be banned (9to5mac.com)
- Group plans disruptive protest tomorrow at Apple’s Grand Central Store over Foxconn conditions (9to5mac.com)
- Foxconn issues go mainstream thanks to This American Life and The Daily Show (9to5mac.com)
- Proview tries to block iPads from coming in or going out of China (9to5mac.com)
