Apple has been getting tougher and tougher on its supply chain. Just yesterday, for example, Apple banned suppliers who used ‘bonded servitude’ as a way to keep workers on assembly lines. Overall, under Tim Cook’s conscientious leadership, conditions just continue to improve for the employees who make our iPhones and iPads.
But there is one way in which conditions have gotten worse for Apple’s supply chain employees. Although Apple limits factory workers to a 60-hour-work week, more supply chain workers went over that amount in 2014 than in 2013. But don’t start pulling your knives out just yet.
As Brian X. Chen at The New York Times points out, the percentage of workers that are now working over 60-hours a week has dropped just 3% year-over-year:
The company’s policy limits factory workers to a 60-hour workweek. Apple said it had found that 92 percent of the more than 1.1 million workers in its supply chain worked no more than 60 hours a week last year, compared with 95 percent in 2013.
Apple sold an enormous number of iPhones last year — last quarter alone, it sold 74.5 million smartphones — so it is not surprising that factories pushed more of their workers over the limits.
Keep in mind that Apple has also come a long way since 2008, where an internal audit found that a massive 59% of its audited factories were working employees more than 60 hours a week. Things have substantially improved for workers in Apple’s supply chain. Here’s hoping this minute backslide is a statistical anomaly.
Source: New York Times
