Apple’s Contractor Report: No Mention Of Suicide, Riots or Beatings

Leander Kahney ()

Apple’s Contractor Report: No Mention Of Suicide, Riots or Beatings

Apple factory workers. Image: Apple Supplier Responsibility 2010 Progress Report

Apple has just published its annual Supplier Responsibility Report, which discusses its contractor compliance code and what it did about violations. Gizmodo has a fun take on the report: it’s all well and good, but there’s no mention of worker suicide, strikes or reporter beatings.

I had a look through the report and it’s kinda maddening. On the one hand, it does speak to genuine effort at enforcing standards. But in typical Apple style, it’s secretive and non-specific. It doesn’t mention any names, dates or details. It’s hard to judge in any independent way whether Apple’s efforts are effective. It’s just too vague.
Yeah, it crows about some numbers, but it’s not like a piece of detailed, independent reporting where you get a good, deep picture becuase of the wealth of detail. It reads like a highly-redacted CIA report about some shady mission that’s too secret to talk about except in the vaguest terms. You just have to take the Apple’s word for it. And although Apple is working with respected, independent organizations like Verite, I’m not sure I do.
See for yourself. Here’s Apple’s full 2010 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report (PDF).

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, News, Opinions |

  • Drew Caster

    How does it compare with the reports from HP, Dell. Microsoft and others who use the same vendors as Apple does?

    Do they even have these kind of reports?

  • Camillo Miller

    Yep, you right. It looks a bit like a report from the DLOFA (Dear Leader Office of Foreign Affairs – just invented it) but I can see some drops of genuinity here and there.
    I understand reporting, and in fact if you talk about this things as a reporter you MUST mention all the problems but hey, at a corporate level? They really don’t have the necessity to talk about one on 135.000 workers who committed suicide. That’s brute, cynical and saddening to say, but it’s capitalism, stupid! It just works (like that).

  • J

    “You just have to take the Apple’s word for it. …, I’m not sure I do.”

    Why don’t you?

  • Paul

    Gizmodo has become a non stop Apple bashing, flame baiting Blog. Every Apple article trashes Apple, insults Apple users and does everything it can to belittle Apple.

  • Chris

    Is it just me or do their hats look like an Apple mouse?

  • Steve W

    You want to know what I don’t believe: reporters when they describe the horrible conditions inside those air-conditioned, clean room “sweat shops”, and the “slave laborers” that earn better than average pay.

    Just imagine, if this factory were located in the USA, then the report would probably include a mention of some worker “going postal”, as well as lawsuits over discrimination and sexual harassment. The grass is always browner on the other side of the fence.

  • zahadum

    @j:
    the reason why a responsible reporter would no longer take apple’s word at face value is because apple has squandered the trust which for so long has been encapsulated in its brand positioning.

    * the subtrefuge (aka lying) about Steve jobs health

    * the stock options back-dating scandal

    * the censorship on the AppStore (ranging from the most craven, purely political targets – eg bannng the Dali Lama to appease the Chinese- to hypocritically cultural capitulation – eg all the bikini apps banned … except
    of course those from big established brands like SI).

    * the long-standing silence about working conditions in china – until forced to act by media coverage.

    * ditto on environmental impact.

    * the SOP of denyng responsibility for product defects – even if hundreds or thousands of cases exit, until forced to respond by class action law-suits ….
    Not to mention the practice of deleting complaints on it’s own customer service messageboards in order to make each victim think they are an isolated problem unworthy of further examination.

    * the violation of the core value proposition which justified a premium price by virtue of delivering a premium product: the ever increasing decline in QA erodes apple’s long-term competitive advantage.

    The big picture is very simple: apple’s brand identity has been about their ability to make the tools get out of the way of the work: there is a subtle and deeply gratifying zen quality to a user experience of transparency ….

    It is the hallmark of apple-the-product: it is no longer the hall-mark of apple-the-company.

    When apple acts the same way as other companies – when the user is commodities rather than made unique – then apple loses the essence of what makes it different.

    It loses trust.

    And therefore the right to be presumptively beleived when it’s PR sorceress shovels out vague, undocumented, unverifiable accounts about apple’s virtuous corporate conduct.

  • zahadum

    Typo in 3rd last para: COMMODIFIED (not commodities).

    (can’t be bothered with other small typos…
    (too bad that EDITING is not a featue on this website!
    ( Sigh ).

    … Typos due the hideous spell-checker on the iPhone!
    (another example of EPIC FAIL in QA!).

  • Daniel

    Thanks for the story. Keep the heat up. I’m a long-time Apple use, but a longer-time human rights advocate. With Apple’s margins, there’s no excuse for anything less than industry best labor practices.

    Steve W. Wasn’t aware you could discern working conditions by looking at pictures. Must be a new feature in iPhoto.

    @Paul Examples? I read Gizmodo every day and am not aware of anything even closely resembling “non-stop” Apple bashing unless by “non-stop”, you mean every couple days or so, interspersed between the 20 other stories on Apple that are not negative. Engadget probably exhibits more anti-Apple bias, but if you’re that sensitive, there’s always macdailynews. I hate to say it but there’s not a single item on Zahundams list that isn’t gospel truth, although he could have mentioned that Apple computers are currently the greenest in the industry.

  • Daniel

    That should have read “zahadum’s list”. Apologies.

  • porkchop1234

    So tell me something. Considering Apple is an American company with a huge market in the USA and a cash flow that has steadily increased over the years why haven’t they opened their own factories in order to have their products assembled in the USA?

    My guess is why have to pay an American worker a livable wage plus health benefits when they can pay some guy named Charley Chang in Xiang Xia Ping 5 bucks a day and send him home to his wife and 6 kids who live in a 2 room apartment and are forced to live off rice all the while the Chinese government high class bureaucrats sit back eating steak and keep a watchful eye on their university students in hopes of finding more volunteers to test the effectiveness of Chinese manufactured bullets when they enter the brain cavity. Since we’re on the subject of China I suggest people do some surfing on the recent hacker attack on gmail which originated from China and was centered on the accounts of some human right activists.

    Love Apple or hate Apple it doesn’t matter in the end all these mega corps are no different from Adidas and their 4 dollars to manufacture sneakers that they sell to the American public at 100 plus bucks a pair. The good book was so right THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL TRULY IS MONEY.

  • Drew Caster

    “some guy named Charley Chang in Xiang Xia Ping 5 bucks a day and send him home to his wife and 6 kids who live in a 2 room apartment”

    Guess you didn’t hear about China’s one-child per family policy.

    The “good” book never said “The root of all evil truly is money”. That was Karl Marx. The original statement was “the LOVE of money was the root of all evil”. And it’s still a stupid statement. What was Jeffery Dahmer’s profit motive? The DC sniper? Bin Laden’s? etc…

  • porkchop1234

    The “good” book never said “The root of all evil truly is money”. That was Karl Marx. The original statement was “the LOVE of money was the root of all evil”. And it’s still a stupid statement. What was Jeffery Dahmer’s profit motive? The DC sniper? Bin Laden’s? etc.

    Stupidity should be classified a sin…oh wait it is. Dude you have my prayers. Kindly tell me wtf is the point of your asinine post is. Firstly I was quoting loosely from the Bible and anyone with a brain knew what I was getting at. Secondly the main idea I’m talking about is people being used overseas as well as jobs being exported because of corporate greed and you blabber about Bin Laden, Dahmer and Marx the mega idiot.

    You’re really bored on your end aren’t you Drew?