Apple: Cheap iPhone, high costs for workers

Last year, a scandal erupted when the NGO China Labor Watch revealed the working conditions of Pegatron employees. Pegatron is not a simple Taiwanese company, that's also a major supplier to Apple.

In those days, China Labor Watch's investigations revealed at least 86 labor rights violations, including 36 legal violations and 50 ethical violations. Apple declared it had no idea of what happened and couldn't know, as a dozen of audits had been conducted and have revealed nothing wrong (same old story...).

Anyway, one year later it looks like nothing happened and Apple is still working with Pegatron, despite the recent controversy.

Indeed, according to the news, Apple recently asked to its suppliers to produce 80 million large screen iPhone. Among those suppliers, Pegatron, of course. OK, allegations of modern slavery were made one year ago and we could think that, maybe, the situation has changed. But that's not the case.

Last year one man under 18 died in Pegatron factory, after such a scandal we could imagine that the company would realize huge improvements. Not at all. Two weeks ago, labor inspection reported that working conditions were still awful : temperature was too high, there was not enough fresh air, high humidity and workplaces didn't meet the legal requirements.

Apple doesn't mind whether its suppliers are clean or not, as long as it can have cheap iPhone. That's a bit ironic when we know how much they sell it once finished...

This is clearly modern slavery, we have the duty to fight it !

Follow me on Twitter : @SlaveryFight

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