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Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties

217 points by nailer 6y ago

judge2020 6y ago
Supply chains at Apple’s scale take at least 3 years to set up and scale up. I’m surprised it didn’t take longer for them to fully disintegrate that supplier.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  You'd think they call that supplier and the supplier would (within a few hours) stop using child labour...
  - jibcage 6y ago
    They have leverage if they’re the only gig in town, though.
  - keehun 6y ago
    While still meeting delivery targets? Even if budget weren't a concern, how do you scale up new employees that quickly? I'm NOT condoning the behavior. This is disgusting. Still, "the supplier would (within a few hours) stop using child labour" is completely unrealistic. Apple should have cut ties immediately even if it meant a breach of contract or shortage of inventory.
    - TLightful 6y ago
      With the utmost respect. F@ck delivery targets.
    - xupybd 6y ago
      They should have but they made the bet they could slowly transition to another supplier with no impact to profits by getting out without anyone finding out. I'm also betting their hit to profits will be less even after this revelation, than if they cut ties with the supplier and run short on inventory. I wouldn't be surprised if that cold calculation came into play as well.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        As expected: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-aapl-earnings-q1-2021.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-aapl-earnings-q1-2021....
  - herodoturtle 6y ago
    You'd think within a few hours and not right away?
  - stunt 6y ago
    Maybe not hours, but days or months. I don't understand why they haven't done anything in 3 years to not lose Apple. I'm worried if Apple didn't push hard enough during all that 3 years, and later they moved to a different supplier for other reasons.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      If you read the article linked from this one at The Information, the child labor case boils down to this: The minimum age was 16. An audit revealed 2 15-year-olds were working at Suyin. 3 months later (the time companies are given to remedy things like this), 3 more underage workers were found (ages 15 and 14) in a follow-on audit. At that point, Apple stopped giving new contracts to Suyin due to the repeated violations, but permitted existing contracts to run their course. Apple did do something, just probably not what most people would want them to do.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    You'd think they call that supplier and the supplier tries to convince them they've stopped using child labour. For some reason I was looking at pictures of textile equipment recently. Some of that equipment is built so that it's only accessible to growing children or adults with growth disorders. That's structural bias to such a degree that it is in fact literal. The requirement of child labor is literally built into the factory. I have no way of knowing if that's true for this factory, but if they're capitalistic at all then accessibility for (local) above-average humans is an opportunity cost that would have been eliminated in the name of efficiency. And if that worked so well why not try it again on the next assembly line, only goosed a little harder? In any case, there is no "overnight" because you have to train new people for a high throughput task. But would you even believe them once they did? For the west that's such a basic boundary at this point that if someone goes past it, it's because their ethical model is so different from yours that you can't reason about whether they've actually done what you've asked, or they've employed a new coping mechanism to seem 'normal'. Like just rearranging the factory so that your section has all the people over 16, which means the other building is now almost entirely children (making the situation more dangerous, not less). Or the children work second shift when you won't be around to audit, which is both dangerous and more unhealthy. They didn't get your objection to begin with. Their response is likely to resemble the sort of thing a sociopath would do: identify your discomfort and arrange for it never to be triggered, rather than truth and reconciliation.
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  Can you explain this more. If it takes them 3 years to scale up, does it now mean all the vendors are locked in for that period. If a vendor starts failing quality checks will they still take 3 years to disintegrate them? If not then why would violation of their own labor standards take 3 years to remove them? FWIW, except forced labor, I am against child labor standards since it usurps the wisdom of the parents without providing for that child. No parent no matter how poor wants their child to work unless they cannot afford to feed them. The alternative to working in a apple supplier factory might be working in a more hazardous factory or construction site.
  - stagger87 6y ago
    > does it now mean all the vendors are locked in for that period? Probably contractually, yes. For large scale manufacturing there are agreements and purchases that look ahead years in advance. Parts and labor are allocated. If you have quality control issues at any point (which is common), you fix them.
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    Parents make plenty of awful decisions for their kids. They beat them, rape them, and more. Why is there an assumption that they’re doing the “better alternative” by putting them to work? If American companies condone child labor, then they’re encouraging it.
  - alicorn 6y ago
    > No parent no matter how poor wants their child to work unless they cannot afford to feed them. As anyone who has grown up in a country where child labor was normal will tell you, this is patently false. If it is the norm in the country in question, everyone does it and it is expected. Children who do not work and their families are in many cases ostracized. Then of course there are jobs and jobs, and a certain type of parent might vie for a job for their child that is less backbreaking than the average. But not working at all is frowned upon. Source: lived experience in Soviet Union.
  - somethingwitty1 6y ago
    Outside of the other concerns people have raised, it is important to remember even if all parents are making the right choice for their kids, it isn't always (and in many cases, isn't) the parent making this decision. For example, another case where Apple has gotten outed, they were actively aware of the forced child labor by the schools: https://www.channelnews.com.au/apple-admits-to-using-child-labour-to-build-iphone-x/ https://www.channelnews.com.au/apple-admits-to-using-child-l... And if you believe the children, they also weren't really being paid and had no choice to participate in these "internships".
- rmsaksida 6y ago
  A supplier using child labor shouldn't be a "ok, let's gradually work this out" kind of issue. It should be a "immediately cut all ties to them" kind of issue. If it will disrupt a supply chain and hurt profits, so be it. Seems like a small price to pay compared to using child labor.
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    I'm getting so tired of people defending Apple on this. Like...No. This is a red line. Do a better job before you find a supplier.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - munk-a 6y ago
      I think it's acceptable to accidentally pick a bad supplier but when they learned of this three years ago they should've immediately cut ties. Oh, it's super expensive to change suppliers but own the mistake and pay the short term costs of being forced to rework supply lines while recognizing that inefficiency as the cost of skimping on your research on the supplier. I would be absolutely unsurprised if someone instrumental in setting up this partnership still got a bonus after this was discovered due to the low cost of producing the part.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    It’s doubtful that any large bureaucracy can execute that decision quickly, though I do agree 3 years is way too long. I’d put 3 months as hard minimum even assuming every internal decision process went as smoothly as possible, and 6 months as a more realistic amount. Just legal validation alone would take weeks even under emergency round-the-clock conditions. It’s the same with most open and shut zero-tolerance style firings as well, for all but the most fungible roles. This largely has nothing to do with how grievous the transgression is or how sincerely the management wants to do the right thing. It has to do with red tape that is designed from first principles to permit zero exceptions or special cases that can cut through it quickly. It would require refactoring not just Apple’s red tape infrastructure but the entire concept across virtually all of corporate America to optimize for speed of firing vendors based on child exploitation. It’s like choosing an O(n^2) algorithm, baking it in as a load-bearing centerpiece, then being upset something doesn’t happen in O(1).
edoceo 6y ago
With all these eyes on Apple, what do we know about Asus or Acer or even further down the alphabet? For some components we may only have a very few suppliers
- topicseed 6y ago
  > For some components we may only have a very few suppliers Oh, ok then.
  - edoceo 6y ago
    ? No! I don't mean F-it. I want to know what's going on.
- lasfter 6y ago
  The entire hardware industry is dependent on human or environmental exploitation to acquire materials for batteries and chips. Cobalt and Tantalum are mined by child slaves in the Congo, smuggled to Rwanda and Zambia, then branded as "ethical". Rare earth refineries destroyed Baotou lake in China, rendering surrounding villages destitute, and threatened to contaminate the groundwater that sustains a huge portion of the Chinese population. If you look into other materials that electronics depend on you'll see similar problems. Electronics cause astronomical suffering. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-20/deadly-mines-linked-to-child-labor-thrive-in-rush-for-batteries https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-20/deadly-mi... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-ra... [3] https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/13/where-apple-gets-tantalum-your-iphone-304351.html https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/13/where-apple-gets-tantalu... [4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/3183/2016/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/3183/2016/en/
  - purple-again 6y ago
    Electronics? Didn’t I just read about how the price of coffee is about to spike in the west due to some legislation that will make it harder for them to use slave labor? I hate to say it because my life is so comfortable but it might just be that comfortable life that is causing the astronomical suffering.
balozi 6y ago
I am very curious what Apple employees think about all the slave labor and child labor accusations. Do you think its fake news from haters? Is it all exaggerated? Is it some sort of misunderstanding? Is is just unsubstantiated rumors? Is it all ok with you? Are you scared to even question things? Tell us so we too may share in your understanding.
- mikestew 6y ago
  Were I an Apple employee, I wouldn't come within 3m of this post. Just asking questions, are you?
- tolbish 6y ago
  I don't think they want to risk their jobs with public criticism.
sircastor 6y ago
I recommend you read the original article written by The Information (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-took-three-years-to-cut-ties-with-supplier-that-used-underage-labor https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-took-three-yea...) instead of the BI article. The original does a better job of clarifying the situation.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  Meh, The Information is a massively overrated and overpriced news source that often misses out on basic industry news and has embarrassingly juvenile coverage of org charts, and acts more like a thinly veiled mouthpiece for its founder and her husband to appear like they have newsworthy opinions when in reality no serious journalist would publish what they write. I’d trust BI 1000-fold for a story like this.
toolz 6y ago
Was there ever a time where child labor was acceptable? Now I'm not in touch with all the logistics here, but if I were growing up in a country where I had the option of starving or sending my kids off to work I know what I would be choosing. Child labor occurred in my family as little as a generation ago. My mother and her siblings all worked long hours in the field to raise crops with her family. She seems to be thriving after being in a situation the west seems to deem as terrible. Ideally children don't have to work, ideally no one has to work - I do wonder if South Korea would be as democratic and free today if it weren't for their child labor force as little as 80 years ago though and I do wonder if those children or families would've preferred the alternative to child labor. Presumably they did not, since they volunteered their children to work for low wages. I really do think we have to be mindful of judging other cultures against our rich western values. There are likely clear cases of child abuse that should be abolished - there are abusive cases of employment for all ages that should be abolished. I do wonder if we're too quick to judge child labor as a category in the west, though.
- enriquto 6y ago
  > Was there ever a time where child labor was acceptable? Just like slavery was. Slaves always had the option to kill themselves, but instead the slavery system allowed them to live and have families and feed them. In that light, you comment comes out as extremely callous.
  - toolz 6y ago
    Do you deem there to be a difference since presumably the children's parents love the child but still choose to have them work? Again, I don't believe child labor is ideal, but I do wonder if there's really a comparison to slavery, which was entirely compulsory.
    - enriquto 6y ago
      > presumably the children's parents love the child but still choose to have them work Please, stop. Don't you realize you are making it worse? Still, it is funny to see you defend child labor as a cultural value, just to save Apple's face. Not sure Apple would appreciate your efforts, though.
xupybd 6y ago
Yet less than a week to cut ties with Parler. If this had been as public as the capital riots I'm sure they would have moved quickly. That said I can't imagine the effort in moving production on their scale. Edit: After the onslaught of down votes I thought I'd better clarify. Apple is only moving away from this supplier because of the damage it does to their brand. They are not motivated to act ethically as they would have moved a lot faster if that had been the case.
- PoignardAzur 6y ago
  Adding an url to a denylist is a lot faster than finding and setting up a new electronics assembly factory (or whatever these guys did).
ineedasername 6y ago
Is it possible, right now, to do business that requires such a complex supply chain without encountering significant labor issues of this sort? By which I mean, are there Western firms with more robust labor laws that could fill these needs?
- reaperducer 6y ago
  are there Western firms with more robust labor laws that could fill these needs? Currently, probably not. But if companies were willing to give up a tiny sliver of profits, the market would quickly fill that void. The problem is the mantra of "maximizing" shareholder profit at all costs. Even the cost of human life and dignity. /Apple stockholder whose votes are drowned out by the institutional investors.
- judge2020 6y ago
  I think another good question is: What percentage of raw materials does Intel import from China? For Intel chips made in the U.S., how much of the resources used to make the chips are extracted with US-based labor (since that's generally the most acceptable standard for ensuring slavery isn't used during production)?
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Assuming the imported materials are rare earths, then it would probably be the vast majority of their imports from China. Rare earths are another area where the rest of the world has ceded a critical strategic bottleneck to an adversarial regime.
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
How is this unusual? We all know Qatar's FIFA 2020 accommodations are built on the backs of slaves; we all know that rarely a mobile phone sees a battery that is not won from the toil and sweat of slaves. We all knowingly do business, directly, or indirectly with slave owners and child labor pimps. Every electronics manufacturer knows well that it's cobalt comes from child slavery.
- aspaceman 6y ago
  It's unusual because Apple makes a lot of comments about equality, prosperity and equality of opportunity. Especially in the context of recent BLM activism, their activities in these areas look especially hypocritical. It also makes their activism look hypocritical by their willingness to commit business with people doing slavery. You're totally right about cobalt. About every other company being the same. But that just makes it hypocritical for them too. While not unusual, it's still reprehensible. No matter how you try and justify it imo.
  - Blikkentrekker 6y ago
    Let me then phrase it thus: this article puts it as if this be some revelation. Everyone would know that Apple surely deals with companies it knows use slavery and child labor, because Apple produces batteries and there's no other way. It is as if one præsent it as a revelation that Apple consumes fossil fuels, despite claiming to be environmentally aware.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      Do all battery producing companies use child Labour? I highly doubt it. Apple might have had a hard time moving away, but they're Apple - they create billionaires within their supply chain. Foxconn wouldn't be so without Apple, and in turn a ton of Chinese suppliers wouldn't be so without Foxconn. Yet Apple decided to play the same game as the rest of the mobile phone market, instead of using its heft to make sure suppliers adhered to its high standards.
boltzmann_brain 6y ago
Virtue signaling? Instantly on it, never miss a chance. Attack actual problems with the same determination. Nah.
crumbshot 6y ago
I bet if this supplier had started churning out broken or otherwise lower quality parts, Apple would have forced them to sort it out in fewer than three years.
andreygrehov 6y ago
> Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit just three months later. While this may sound terrible, it's not that uncommon in less developed countries. I had my first job when I was 15 and that was one of the most exciting moments. I'm pretty sure those 14 years old are as excited as 15 years old me–eager to work and make money. It would be a breaking news if a supplier were to _force_ children to work, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case here. Those kids do want to work and they are proud to be doing work for Apple.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  I had my first job folding and delivering flyers when I was 13 and back then already asked why it was not child labor to no satisfactory response. I later came to realize that the reason it is not child labor is simply because it's not something associated therewith, had I earned my money making sneakers, something no more or less laborious, it would be called so. Laws are rarely the function of what something factually is, as that would be far too boring and sensible and actually fix problems; they are invariably based on what particular segment of society the activity is associated with, of course: — thus all the clean man's hard drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are completely legal.
  - jwalton 6y ago
    I was listening to a talk a while ago by one of the founders of Cirque du Soleil, and he said they ran into a problem in (iirc - this was a while ago) a European country where they were told they had to stop performing one off their acts, because the performers were too young and so were considered child workers. As you point out, we seem to be OK with child actors and child paper routes and child you tubers, for some reason.
- marc_io 6y ago
  They may be “excited”, but this really doesn't make it less problematic. They must follow the labor laws too.
jbjbjbjb 6y ago
I’ll go ahead and say it -compulsory education is up to age 15 in China and “Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit”. It’s not worth closing the supplier down immediately for this. I also expect they have adults with families to support in the workforce.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit just three months later. Historically, ages 12 to 14 were traditional coming of age birthdays. (I think this is where we get the Jewish bar mitzvah, as just one example.) In other words, you were considered to be an adult by the age of 14, which aligns with what we generally know about human development in terms of you typically develop executive function about age 12 and it takes a couple of years of practice to get meaningfully good at it (though, granted, research suggests additional brain development continues to about age 25). In the US, it wasn't that many generations back that we routinely had kids in rural areas quit school after the eighth grade to work the fields. That means they were probably around 13 or 14 years old. My father dropped out of high school when he was sixteen because he was a big guy, it was the midst of The Great Depression and he could "earn a man's wage" because he could work hard like a grown man. His lack of formal education was not stigmatizing at that time. Now the military wants more education, but he had no problem going up in rank and making a good career for himself as a high school drop out. I've read some pieces some years back that indicate that when first world countries (for lack of a better term) go to third world countries and insist that kids aren't allowed to work, they actively interfere with survival for individuals in that place who are expected to work and do not have a social safety net. When we show up and impose our "high standards" to make us feel morally superior, we do so from a very privileged perspective and don't think about how that interacts with reality on the ground. There are American teens who work because they are part of a poor family and they need that money to help feed themselves. That happens in the US, yet we think all teenagers in some other country are supposed to have some pampered existence with parents providing for them while they laze around and maybe tend to their schooling. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that it's a complicated issue and the headline here and the article aren't treating it with any nuance at all.
- chemeng 6y ago
  To me it seems the definition of "child labor" that we're collectively operating under needs clarification. My general assumption has been that "child labor" in the international industrial context was grade school children (5-12 years old or so) working, often in a compulsory manner. As someone who worked since the age of 14 (part-time) here in the US to help put food on the table, I don't see an issue with 14+ yr olds working. That was in the late 90's, but I can't imagine there aren't 14yr olds working in the US in all manner of jobs today after school and on weekends. The existence of of such jobs here in the US was the difference between food or going hungry for my family. I have to imagine that in less developed parts of the world this version of "child labor" may actually do more to lift those families out of poverty than eliminating them. Unfortunately, as you said, it's hard to discern what the nature and context of this labor truly is.
mhh__ 6y ago
Why is everyone in this thread waxing poetic about whether it's right or wrong? Apple have about $250 BILLION in their piggy bank, don't give them the benefit of the doubt.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Simply having money shouldn't, per se, be used as a reason to assume guilt. This is not a good way to get to a more civilized world where living right and working hard leads to the good life and all that. (Yes, I'm aware we have some serious issues in the US with not adequately equitably distributing wealth. A policy of "hang 'em high because they are rich!" doesn't fix that.)
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    I'm not saying they're guilty of anything illegal I'm saying they have enough money that any failing is solely on them. Capitalism is an enormously powerful tool but morality has to be considered as well
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I disagree, well technically I agree that having money shouldn't equate guilt - but Apple makes a lot of money and chose to make some more money by partnering with a supplier that was using child labour. They didn't start that partnership with that understanding but they did continue it and they certainly have the means to drop that supplier in favor of a supplier that didn't use child labour... changing suppliers is expensive in terms of having a steady supply line and in terms of having a cheap supply line - delaying dropping them for a month or two while you line up some alternate manufacturer because of up-stream dependencies is probably acceptable but they had the money to fix this pretty quickly - certainly more quickly than three years down the road.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    His point is that they have enough of a kitty to cut ties rightaway, then eat their losses for a while due to supply chain disruption. They took it slow, running out their existing contracts without breaking them unilaterally (which would have come at some minor cost) and hoping that no one found out.
boh 6y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this story has little traction in the mainstream, has a limited impact on anything Apple does or how the market perceives them. The real story we've been witnessing for decades now is how little people care about labor rights abuses (particularly if they happen overseas). This isn't the first time child labor has been linked to Apple and I'd be really surprised if it's the last. The headline should read "Consumers of Apple Products Knew About Labor Abuses for Years and Still Buy Their Products". Thats essentially why it took three years to cut ties--because no one cares (above social media finger waving).
NomDePlum 6y ago
There have been substantial reporting of similar circumstances involving Apple for close to a decade, if not longer: httpss://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/25/apple-child-labour-supply
ProAm 6y ago
Apple cares first about cash in the bank and shareholder value. Everything else is second. Everything.
stretchcat 6y ago
If this were any company other than Apple, would half the comments here be underplaying the severity of it?
Isamu 6y ago
This was discovered through the supplier transparency reports that Apple provides. Apple tells suppliers what they expect, and then when they audit the supplier they report the findings and work with supplier to clean up their act. In this case the the supplier violated child labor policies in what looks like 2 successive audits 3 months apart. The Information is taking the position that Apple should have immediately dropped the supplier instead of continuing with them. It is written in a way that sounds like the supplier was out of compliance for three years, but we are not told. It should be in the transparency reports.
perryizgr8 6y ago
I'm surprised to see so many top level comments defending Apple for knowingly using child labor. I don't know what it says about us, but it's nothing good.
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  > I'm surprised to see so many top level comments defending Apple for knowingly using child labor. I don't know what it says about us, but it's nothing good. You're not alone, I think it's terrifying. What seems worse to me is that some in this thread are suggesting that child labor isn't so bad because: "I had a paper round as a kid". Capitalists have successfully alienated us from the production processes in the global south, and from each other. Indians, the Chinese, Bangladeshi and many others in the global south - have now been fully disinherited and re-'other-ed' in the modern era. It should be referred to by it's proper name: neo-colonialism/imperialism. I am worried that some have so much grandiosity from being told they're awesome at school (and that they are special and one of the only ones good enough to do it - when in reality today's capitalism privatizes and monopolizes knowledge in the form of trade secrets and patent, allowing capitalist firms to 'own' ideas and inventions), that they don't even realize when a job someone else does (because of their privileged higher up position in the capitalist hierarchy) is physically impossible (working 12-14 hour days [2]). [1] John Perkins, An Economic Hit Man Confesses and Calls to Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0 [2] Machines (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrW46sBXJYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrW46sBXJYo (child laborer not even 15 seconds in)

217 points by nailer 6y ago

judge2020 6y ago

Supply chains at Apple’s scale take at least 3 years to set up and scale up. I’m surprised it didn’t take longer for them to fully disintegrate that supplier.

LatteLazy 6y ago
You'd think they call that supplier and the supplier would (within a few hours) stop using child labour...
- jibcage 6y ago
  They have leverage if they’re the only gig in town, though.
- keehun 6y ago
  While still meeting delivery targets? Even if budget weren't a concern, how do you scale up new employees that quickly? I'm NOT condoning the behavior. This is disgusting. Still, "the supplier would (within a few hours) stop using child labour" is completely unrealistic. Apple should have cut ties immediately even if it meant a breach of contract or shortage of inventory.
  - TLightful 6y ago
    With the utmost respect. F@ck delivery targets.
  - xupybd 6y ago
    They should have but they made the bet they could slowly transition to another supplier with no impact to profits by getting out without anyone finding out. I'm also betting their hit to profits will be less even after this revelation, than if they cut ties with the supplier and run short on inventory. I wouldn't be surprised if that cold calculation came into play as well.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      As expected: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-aapl-earnings-q1-2021.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/27/apple-aapl-earnings-q1-2021....
- herodoturtle 6y ago
  You'd think within a few hours and not right away?
- stunt 6y ago
  Maybe not hours, but days or months. I don't understand why they haven't done anything in 3 years to not lose Apple. I'm worried if Apple didn't push hard enough during all that 3 years, and later they moved to a different supplier for other reasons.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    If you read the article linked from this one at The Information, the child labor case boils down to this: The minimum age was 16. An audit revealed 2 15-year-olds were working at Suyin. 3 months later (the time companies are given to remedy things like this), 3 more underage workers were found (ages 15 and 14) in a follow-on audit. At that point, Apple stopped giving new contracts to Suyin due to the repeated violations, but permitted existing contracts to run their course. Apple did do something, just probably not what most people would want them to do.
- hinkley 6y ago
  You'd think they call that supplier and the supplier tries to convince them they've stopped using child labour. For some reason I was looking at pictures of textile equipment recently. Some of that equipment is built so that it's only accessible to growing children or adults with growth disorders. That's structural bias to such a degree that it is in fact literal. The requirement of child labor is literally built into the factory. I have no way of knowing if that's true for this factory, but if they're capitalistic at all then accessibility for (local) above-average humans is an opportunity cost that would have been eliminated in the name of efficiency. And if that worked so well why not try it again on the next assembly line, only goosed a little harder? In any case, there is no "overnight" because you have to train new people for a high throughput task. But would you even believe them once they did? For the west that's such a basic boundary at this point that if someone goes past it, it's because their ethical model is so different from yours that you can't reason about whether they've actually done what you've asked, or they've employed a new coping mechanism to seem 'normal'. Like just rearranging the factory so that your section has all the people over 16, which means the other building is now almost entirely children (making the situation more dangerous, not less). Or the children work second shift when you won't be around to audit, which is both dangerous and more unhealthy. They didn't get your objection to begin with. Their response is likely to resemble the sort of thing a sociopath would do: identify your discomfort and arrange for it never to be triggered, rather than truth and reconciliation.
haltingproblem 6y ago
Can you explain this more. If it takes them 3 years to scale up, does it now mean all the vendors are locked in for that period. If a vendor starts failing quality checks will they still take 3 years to disintegrate them? If not then why would violation of their own labor standards take 3 years to remove them? FWIW, except forced labor, I am against child labor standards since it usurps the wisdom of the parents without providing for that child. No parent no matter how poor wants their child to work unless they cannot afford to feed them. The alternative to working in a apple supplier factory might be working in a more hazardous factory or construction site.
- stagger87 6y ago
  > does it now mean all the vendors are locked in for that period? Probably contractually, yes. For large scale manufacturing there are agreements and purchases that look ahead years in advance. Parts and labor are allocated. If you have quality control issues at any point (which is common), you fix them.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  Parents make plenty of awful decisions for their kids. They beat them, rape them, and more. Why is there an assumption that they’re doing the “better alternative” by putting them to work? If American companies condone child labor, then they’re encouraging it.
- alicorn 6y ago
  > No parent no matter how poor wants their child to work unless they cannot afford to feed them. As anyone who has grown up in a country where child labor was normal will tell you, this is patently false. If it is the norm in the country in question, everyone does it and it is expected. Children who do not work and their families are in many cases ostracized. Then of course there are jobs and jobs, and a certain type of parent might vie for a job for their child that is less backbreaking than the average. But not working at all is frowned upon. Source: lived experience in Soviet Union.
- somethingwitty1 6y ago
  Outside of the other concerns people have raised, it is important to remember even if all parents are making the right choice for their kids, it isn't always (and in many cases, isn't) the parent making this decision. For example, another case where Apple has gotten outed, they were actively aware of the forced child labor by the schools: https://www.channelnews.com.au/apple-admits-to-using-child-labour-to-build-iphone-x/ https://www.channelnews.com.au/apple-admits-to-using-child-l... And if you believe the children, they also weren't really being paid and had no choice to participate in these "internships".
rmsaksida 6y ago
A supplier using child labor shouldn't be a "ok, let's gradually work this out" kind of issue. It should be a "immediately cut all ties to them" kind of issue. If it will disrupt a supply chain and hurt profits, so be it. Seems like a small price to pay compared to using child labor.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  I'm getting so tired of people defending Apple on this. Like...No. This is a red line. Do a better job before you find a supplier.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - munk-a 6y ago
    I think it's acceptable to accidentally pick a bad supplier but when they learned of this three years ago they should've immediately cut ties. Oh, it's super expensive to change suppliers but own the mistake and pay the short term costs of being forced to rework supply lines while recognizing that inefficiency as the cost of skimping on your research on the supplier. I would be absolutely unsurprised if someone instrumental in setting up this partnership still got a bonus after this was discovered due to the low cost of producing the part.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  It’s doubtful that any large bureaucracy can execute that decision quickly, though I do agree 3 years is way too long. I’d put 3 months as hard minimum even assuming every internal decision process went as smoothly as possible, and 6 months as a more realistic amount. Just legal validation alone would take weeks even under emergency round-the-clock conditions. It’s the same with most open and shut zero-tolerance style firings as well, for all but the most fungible roles. This largely has nothing to do with how grievous the transgression is or how sincerely the management wants to do the right thing. It has to do with red tape that is designed from first principles to permit zero exceptions or special cases that can cut through it quickly. It would require refactoring not just Apple’s red tape infrastructure but the entire concept across virtually all of corporate America to optimize for speed of firing vendors based on child exploitation. It’s like choosing an O(n^2) algorithm, baking it in as a load-bearing centerpiece, then being upset something doesn’t happen in O(1).

edoceo 6y ago

With all these eyes on Apple, what do we know about Asus or Acer or even further down the alphabet? For some components we may only have a very few suppliers

topicseed 6y ago
> For some components we may only have a very few suppliers Oh, ok then.
- edoceo 6y ago
  ? No! I don't mean F-it. I want to know what's going on.
lasfter 6y ago
The entire hardware industry is dependent on human or environmental exploitation to acquire materials for batteries and chips. Cobalt and Tantalum are mined by child slaves in the Congo, smuggled to Rwanda and Zambia, then branded as "ethical". Rare earth refineries destroyed Baotou lake in China, rendering surrounding villages destitute, and threatened to contaminate the groundwater that sustains a huge portion of the Chinese population. If you look into other materials that electronics depend on you'll see similar problems. Electronics cause astronomical suffering. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-20/deadly-mines-linked-to-child-labor-thrive-in-rush-for-batteries https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-20/deadly-mi... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-ra... [3] https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/13/where-apple-gets-tantalum-your-iphone-304351.html https://www.newsweek.com/2015/02/13/where-apple-gets-tantalu... [4] https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/3183/2016/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/3183/2016/en/
- purple-again 6y ago
  Electronics? Didn’t I just read about how the price of coffee is about to spike in the west due to some legislation that will make it harder for them to use slave labor? I hate to say it because my life is so comfortable but it might just be that comfortable life that is causing the astronomical suffering.

balozi 6y ago

I am very curious what Apple employees think about all the slave labor and child labor accusations. Do you think its fake news from haters? Is it all exaggerated? Is it some sort of misunderstanding? Is is just unsubstantiated rumors? Is it all ok with you? Are you scared to even question things? Tell us so we too may share in your understanding.

mikestew 6y ago
Were I an Apple employee, I wouldn't come within 3m of this post. Just asking questions, are you?
tolbish 6y ago
I don't think they want to risk their jobs with public criticism.

sircastor 6y ago

I recommend you read the original article written by The Information (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-took-three-years-to-cut-ties-with-supplier-that-used-underage-labor https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-took-three-yea...) instead of the BI article. The original does a better job of clarifying the situation.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
Meh, The Information is a massively overrated and overpriced news source that often misses out on basic industry news and has embarrassingly juvenile coverage of org charts, and acts more like a thinly veiled mouthpiece for its founder and her husband to appear like they have newsworthy opinions when in reality no serious journalist would publish what they write. I’d trust BI 1000-fold for a story like this.

toolz 6y ago

Was there ever a time where child labor was acceptable? Now I'm not in touch with all the logistics here, but if I were growing up in a country where I had the option of starving or sending my kids off to work I know what I would be choosing. Child labor occurred in my family as little as a generation ago. My mother and her siblings all worked long hours in the field to raise crops with her family. She seems to be thriving after being in a situation the west seems to deem as terrible. Ideally children don't have to work, ideally no one has to work - I do wonder if South Korea would be as democratic and free today if it weren't for their child labor force as little as 80 years ago though and I do wonder if those children or families would've preferred the alternative to child labor. Presumably they did not, since they volunteered their children to work for low wages. I really do think we have to be mindful of judging other cultures against our rich western values. There are likely clear cases of child abuse that should be abolished - there are abusive cases of employment for all ages that should be abolished. I do wonder if we're too quick to judge child labor as a category in the west, though.

enriquto 6y ago
> Was there ever a time where child labor was acceptable? Just like slavery was. Slaves always had the option to kill themselves, but instead the slavery system allowed them to live and have families and feed them. In that light, you comment comes out as extremely callous.
- toolz 6y ago
  Do you deem there to be a difference since presumably the children's parents love the child but still choose to have them work? Again, I don't believe child labor is ideal, but I do wonder if there's really a comparison to slavery, which was entirely compulsory.
  - enriquto 6y ago
    > presumably the children's parents love the child but still choose to have them work Please, stop. Don't you realize you are making it worse? Still, it is funny to see you defend child labor as a cultural value, just to save Apple's face. Not sure Apple would appreciate your efforts, though.

xupybd 6y ago

Yet less than a week to cut ties with Parler. If this had been as public as the capital riots I'm sure they would have moved quickly. That said I can't imagine the effort in moving production on their scale. Edit: After the onslaught of down votes I thought I'd better clarify. Apple is only moving away from this supplier because of the damage it does to their brand. They are not motivated to act ethically as they would have moved a lot faster if that had been the case.

PoignardAzur 6y ago
Adding an url to a denylist is a lot faster than finding and setting up a new electronics assembly factory (or whatever these guys did).

ineedasername 6y ago

Is it possible, right now, to do business that requires such a complex supply chain without encountering significant labor issues of this sort? By which I mean, are there Western firms with more robust labor laws that could fill these needs?

reaperducer 6y ago
are there Western firms with more robust labor laws that could fill these needs? Currently, probably not. But if companies were willing to give up a tiny sliver of profits, the market would quickly fill that void. The problem is the mantra of "maximizing" shareholder profit at all costs. Even the cost of human life and dignity. /Apple stockholder whose votes are drowned out by the institutional investors.
judge2020 6y ago
I think another good question is: What percentage of raw materials does Intel import from China? For Intel chips made in the U.S., how much of the resources used to make the chips are extracted with US-based labor (since that's generally the most acceptable standard for ensuring slavery isn't used during production)?
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Assuming the imported materials are rare earths, then it would probably be the vast majority of their imports from China. Rare earths are another area where the rest of the world has ceded a critical strategic bottleneck to an adversarial regime.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

How is this unusual? We all know Qatar's FIFA 2020 accommodations are built on the backs of slaves; we all know that rarely a mobile phone sees a battery that is not won from the toil and sweat of slaves. We all knowingly do business, directly, or indirectly with slave owners and child labor pimps. Every electronics manufacturer knows well that it's cobalt comes from child slavery.

aspaceman 6y ago
It's unusual because Apple makes a lot of comments about equality, prosperity and equality of opportunity. Especially in the context of recent BLM activism, their activities in these areas look especially hypocritical. It also makes their activism look hypocritical by their willingness to commit business with people doing slavery. You're totally right about cobalt. About every other company being the same. But that just makes it hypocritical for them too. While not unusual, it's still reprehensible. No matter how you try and justify it imo.
- Blikkentrekker 6y ago
  Let me then phrase it thus: this article puts it as if this be some revelation. Everyone would know that Apple surely deals with companies it knows use slavery and child labor, because Apple produces batteries and there's no other way. It is as if one præsent it as a revelation that Apple consumes fossil fuels, despite claiming to be environmentally aware.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    Do all battery producing companies use child Labour? I highly doubt it. Apple might have had a hard time moving away, but they're Apple - they create billionaires within their supply chain. Foxconn wouldn't be so without Apple, and in turn a ton of Chinese suppliers wouldn't be so without Foxconn. Yet Apple decided to play the same game as the rest of the mobile phone market, instead of using its heft to make sure suppliers adhered to its high standards.

boltzmann_brain 6y ago

Virtue signaling? Instantly on it, never miss a chance. Attack actual problems with the same determination. Nah.

crumbshot 6y ago

I bet if this supplier had started churning out broken or otherwise lower quality parts, Apple would have forced them to sort it out in fewer than three years.

andreygrehov 6y ago

> Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit just three months later. While this may sound terrible, it's not that uncommon in less developed countries. I had my first job when I was 15 and that was one of the most exciting moments. I'm pretty sure those 14 years old are as excited as 15 years old me–eager to work and make money. It would be a breaking news if a supplier were to _force_ children to work, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case here. Those kids do want to work and they are proud to be doing work for Apple.

Blikkentrekker 6y ago
I had my first job folding and delivering flyers when I was 13 and back then already asked why it was not child labor to no satisfactory response. I later came to realize that the reason it is not child labor is simply because it's not something associated therewith, had I earned my money making sneakers, something no more or less laborious, it would be called so. Laws are rarely the function of what something factually is, as that would be far too boring and sensible and actually fix problems; they are invariably based on what particular segment of society the activity is associated with, of course: — thus all the clean man's hard drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are completely legal.
- jwalton 6y ago
  I was listening to a talk a while ago by one of the founders of Cirque du Soleil, and he said they ran into a problem in (iirc - this was a while ago) a European country where they were told they had to stop performing one off their acts, because the performers were too young and so were considered child workers. As you point out, we seem to be OK with child actors and child paper routes and child you tubers, for some reason.
marc_io 6y ago
They may be “excited”, but this really doesn't make it less problematic. They must follow the labor laws too.

jbjbjbjb 6y ago

I’ll go ahead and say it -compulsory education is up to age 15 in China and “Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit”. It’s not worth closing the supplier down immediately for this. I also expect they have adults with families to support in the workforce.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Apple discovered additional workers as young as 14 years old during an audit just three months later. Historically, ages 12 to 14 were traditional coming of age birthdays. (I think this is where we get the Jewish bar mitzvah, as just one example.) In other words, you were considered to be an adult by the age of 14, which aligns with what we generally know about human development in terms of you typically develop executive function about age 12 and it takes a couple of years of practice to get meaningfully good at it (though, granted, research suggests additional brain development continues to about age 25). In the US, it wasn't that many generations back that we routinely had kids in rural areas quit school after the eighth grade to work the fields. That means they were probably around 13 or 14 years old. My father dropped out of high school when he was sixteen because he was a big guy, it was the midst of The Great Depression and he could "earn a man's wage" because he could work hard like a grown man. His lack of formal education was not stigmatizing at that time. Now the military wants more education, but he had no problem going up in rank and making a good career for himself as a high school drop out. I've read some pieces some years back that indicate that when first world countries (for lack of a better term) go to third world countries and insist that kids aren't allowed to work, they actively interfere with survival for individuals in that place who are expected to work and do not have a social safety net. When we show up and impose our "high standards" to make us feel morally superior, we do so from a very privileged perspective and don't think about how that interacts with reality on the ground. There are American teens who work because they are part of a poor family and they need that money to help feed themselves. That happens in the US, yet we think all teenagers in some other country are supposed to have some pampered existence with parents providing for them while they laze around and maybe tend to their schooling. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that it's a complicated issue and the headline here and the article aren't treating it with any nuance at all.

chemeng 6y ago
To me it seems the definition of "child labor" that we're collectively operating under needs clarification. My general assumption has been that "child labor" in the international industrial context was grade school children (5-12 years old or so) working, often in a compulsory manner. As someone who worked since the age of 14 (part-time) here in the US to help put food on the table, I don't see an issue with 14+ yr olds working. That was in the late 90's, but I can't imagine there aren't 14yr olds working in the US in all manner of jobs today after school and on weekends. The existence of of such jobs here in the US was the difference between food or going hungry for my family. I have to imagine that in less developed parts of the world this version of "child labor" may actually do more to lift those families out of poverty than eliminating them. Unfortunately, as you said, it's hard to discern what the nature and context of this labor truly is.

mhh__ 6y ago

Why is everyone in this thread waxing poetic about whether it's right or wrong? Apple have about $250 BILLION in their piggy bank, don't give them the benefit of the doubt.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Simply having money shouldn't, per se, be used as a reason to assume guilt. This is not a good way to get to a more civilized world where living right and working hard leads to the good life and all that. (Yes, I'm aware we have some serious issues in the US with not adequately equitably distributing wealth. A policy of "hang 'em high because they are rich!" doesn't fix that.)
- mhh__ 6y ago
  I'm not saying they're guilty of anything illegal I'm saying they have enough money that any failing is solely on them. Capitalism is an enormously powerful tool but morality has to be considered as well
- munk-a 6y ago
  I disagree, well technically I agree that having money shouldn't equate guilt - but Apple makes a lot of money and chose to make some more money by partnering with a supplier that was using child labour. They didn't start that partnership with that understanding but they did continue it and they certainly have the means to drop that supplier in favor of a supplier that didn't use child labour... changing suppliers is expensive in terms of having a steady supply line and in terms of having a cheap supply line - delaying dropping them for a month or two while you line up some alternate manufacturer because of up-stream dependencies is probably acceptable but they had the money to fix this pretty quickly - certainly more quickly than three years down the road.
- fakedang 6y ago
  His point is that they have enough of a kitty to cut ties rightaway, then eat their losses for a while due to supply chain disruption. They took it slow, running out their existing contracts without breaking them unilaterally (which would have come at some minor cost) and hoping that no one found out.

boh 6y ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume this story has little traction in the mainstream, has a limited impact on anything Apple does or how the market perceives them. The real story we've been witnessing for decades now is how little people care about labor rights abuses (particularly if they happen overseas). This isn't the first time child labor has been linked to Apple and I'd be really surprised if it's the last. The headline should read "Consumers of Apple Products Knew About Labor Abuses for Years and Still Buy Their Products". Thats essentially why it took three years to cut ties--because no one cares (above social media finger waving).

NomDePlum 6y ago

There have been substantial reporting of similar circumstances involving Apple for close to a decade, if not longer: httpss://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/25/apple-child-labour-supply

ProAm 6y ago

Apple cares first about cash in the bank and shareholder value. Everything else is second. Everything.

stretchcat 6y ago

If this were any company other than Apple, would half the comments here be underplaying the severity of it?

Isamu 6y ago

This was discovered through the supplier transparency reports that Apple provides. Apple tells suppliers what they expect, and then when they audit the supplier they report the findings and work with supplier to clean up their act. In this case the the supplier violated child labor policies in what looks like 2 successive audits 3 months apart. The Information is taking the position that Apple should have immediately dropped the supplier instead of continuing with them. It is written in a way that sounds like the supplier was out of compliance for three years, but we are not told. It should be in the transparency reports.

perryizgr8 6y ago

I'm surprised to see so many top level comments defending Apple for knowingly using child labor. I don't know what it says about us, but it's nothing good.

bergstromm466 6y ago
> I'm surprised to see so many top level comments defending Apple for knowingly using child labor. I don't know what it says about us, but it's nothing good. You're not alone, I think it's terrifying. What seems worse to me is that some in this thread are suggesting that child labor isn't so bad because: "I had a paper round as a kid". Capitalists have successfully alienated us from the production processes in the global south, and from each other. Indians, the Chinese, Bangladeshi and many others in the global south - have now been fully disinherited and re-'other-ed' in the modern era. It should be referred to by it's proper name: neo-colonialism/imperialism. I am worried that some have so much grandiosity from being told they're awesome at school (and that they are special and one of the only ones good enough to do it - when in reality today's capitalism privatizes and monopolizes knowledge in the form of trade secrets and patent, allowing capitalist firms to 'own' ideas and inventions), that they don't even realize when a job someone else does (because of their privileged higher up position in the capitalist hierarchy) is physically impossible (working 12-14 hour days [2]). [1] John Perkins, An Economic Hit Man Confesses and Calls to Action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btF6nKHo2i0 [2] Machines (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrW46sBXJYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrW46sBXJYo (child laborer not even 15 seconds in)