Tomas Chlebek At the bottom of the main page Apple.com he appeared new segment. It is marked by an image of a Chinese worker in a protective suit inspecting a MacBook, captioned "Supplier Responsibility, See Our Progress." The segment's content is divided into several parts, all of which relate to conditions at Apple's supplier workplaces.
In addition to the website, the complete report on the working conditions of suppliers for 2015 is also available as a PDF. It describes what problems Apple focused on and how they solved them. The main points are: eliminating child labor and forced labor, not exceeding 60 hours of work per week, ensuring safe working conditions in mineral extraction, supporting employee education, efficient production and processing and recycling of waste, and ensuring workplace safety and adequate training for compliance.
Apple promoted these initiatives with its suppliers primarily through audits. He carried out a total of 2015 of these in 640, seven more than in the previous year. He was inspecting many devices for the first time.
Inspections included analyzes of workplace conditions and interviews with employees, which focused on the search for underage workers, forced labor, falsification of documents, dangerous working conditions and significant environmental threats. 25 repeated interviews with employees were also conducted with the aim of uncovering possible punishment of employees by suppliers for participating in audits.
If suppliers did not meet Apple's clearly stated conditions, Apple was willing to assist in fulfilling them, or cut the supplier out of its supply chain. Apple's report, in addition to tables with the results of audits in relation to the established conditions, also contains examples of their specific non-compliance and solutions. In 2015, Apple discovered three cases of child labor among suppliers, all of them at one supplier that was being audited for the first time. Last year, child labor was discovered in six different locations.
To employees who were required to offer a position, suppliers paid back $4,7 million (111,7 million crowns) in 2015 and $25,6 million (608 million crowns) since 2008. With the help of weekly reports and tools for tracking hours worked, Apple helped ensure 97% compliance with working hours rules. The average working week of all suppliers for the whole year was 55 hours.
Regarding mineral extraction, Apple mentions the example of tin mines in Indonesia, where the Californian firm, together with the Tin Working Group, organized an investigative investigation into workplace safety and environmental behavior. As a result, a five-year program was defined to significantly improve both. Apple has also secured assurances from all smelters and refineries in its supply chain that the suppliers do not finance armed conflict. Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said this included canceling contracts with 35 suppliers.
In the category of working conditions and human rights, Apple's suppliers mostly complied between eighty and ninety percent of the fulfillment of its conditions, such as the elimination of discrimination, physical and psychological abuse, forced labor, etc. The only point whose fulfillment was below 70 percent was wages and employee benefits.
About eighty percent of the fulfillment of the conditions are also achieved by points related to a responsible approach to the environment, such as safe treatment of waste and wastewater, prevention of pollution and elimination of excessive noise. A low 65 percent and 68 percent of fulfillment of the conditions then achieved environmental permits and handling of hazardous materials.
However, Greenpeace commented on the release of the report, saying: "Apple's latest supplier responsibility report certainly points to the importance Apple places on improving its supply chain, but this year's report lacks detail about the ongoing problems and the ways in which it intends to address them."
Greenwork further criticized the report mainly because of the carbon footprint, which is 70% on the suppliers' side. Apple only writes in the report that in 2015 carbon emissions at its suppliers were reduced by 13 tons and that by 800 they should be reduced by 2020 million tons in China.
What kind of propaganda is this? :D