Apple gives a green signal to Fair Labor Association for independent audits of its suppliers

Apple today announced that the Fair Labor Association (FLA) will, upon request of the Cupertino company, voluntarily undertake special audits of its suppliers, including Foxconn factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China. The mentioned company has lately attracted a lot of opprobrium for malpractices like workers’ conditions close to slavery.

As reported by Apple, a team of experts, who specialize in labour laws led by the president of the nonprofit organization, Auret van Heerden, initiated the first inspection this Monday morning at the Foxconn facility in Shenzhen, also known as Foxconn City.

“We believe that workers around the world have the right to a safe and fair working environment, so we have asked the FLA to evaluate independently, the behaviour of our major suppliers,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO .

“The inspections are now underway, unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in their scale and scope. We appreciate that the FLA has agreed to take the unusual steps of identifying the plants in their reports,” added the statement, published on the web.

As a part of this independent evaluation, the FLA interviewed thousands of employees about their working conditions and life, including health and safety, remuneration, hours of work and communication with their bosses. The FLA team inspected both the areas of factory work, such as dormitories and other facilities and thoroughly review the documents related to the procedures in all departments of work.

The findings of the FLA and its recommendations after the first audit will be published in March at its website fairlabor.com. Similar inspections will be conducted in the factories of Quanta and Pegatron, later this spring. Once completed, FLA assessments will cover the factories where more than 90 percent of Apple products are manufactured.

In January, Apple became the first technology company to admit to the Fair Labor Association. The FLA carried out tasks of observation and independent verification to ensure that the standards set by the FLA regarding workplaces were met in all facilities that manufacture the products of the companies affiliated with the FLA.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Feb 14 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.