By Thomas Mucha, GlobalPost
BOSTON — Do you know who made your iPhone?
Sure, that shimmering device in your palm is packed with Silicon Valley smarts. The influence of Steve Jobs and his happy band of engineers is present in its sleek design, ease of use, and cooler-than-thou features that now include some 100,000 apps designed solely for the iPhone.
But as Apple turned a $1.67 billion profit in its latest quarter — buoyed by a 185 percent jump in iPhone revenue — there remains a darker side to this popular mobile phone, as well as for many other high-tech products headed for holiday stockings worldwide.
According to labor rights activists and workers interviewed by GlobalPost over the past six months, labor violations are widespread across Asian supply chains that churn out many of your favorite high-tech gadgets.
Hourly wages below a dollar. Firings with no notice. Brokers that leech away months of a worker’s hard-earned wages. Sweatshop-like conditions where workers have few rights.
Chastened by a series of reports that documented abuses, Apple and other big high-tech brands are trying to solve the problem. They have established “codes of conduct” for suppliers and routinely conduct factory audits to catch abuse.
“Our audits are done across all our suppliers,” said Apple spokesperson Jill Tan. “It’s a pretty rigorous process, and we take corrective actions as and when required. We audit aggressively, and post all results on our website.”
But these Asian supply chains are notoriously complex and murky. Contractors shift orders across borders and between factories and subcontractors, and some brands treat their supplier list as top-secret information.
Here’s the problem, activists say: While such codes may be good PR, they are not fixing the problem. Instead, they allow big brands to pat themselves on the back, even as workers continue to be exploited in this shadowy world.
“These codes of conduct and audits are new tools that every brand will have, and they feel so proud of themselves,” said Jenny Chan, a labor rights activist formerly with Hong Kong rights group Students and Scholars against Corporate Misbehavior.
“But the codes have limits. To see fundamental change you have to get labor groups involved and gain the trust of workers,” Chan said. “Otherwise it’s just a cat-and-mouse game between auditors and suppliers.”
Since May, GlobalPost correspondents Jonathan Adams and Kathleen E. McLaughlin have interviewed workers, labor rights activists, and suppliers across Taiwan, the Philippines and southern China.
‘Silicon sweatshops,’ their 5-part special report, details the scope of the problem, including responses from Apple, Nokia, Dell and others. The series looks into allegations of abuse of migrant workers from the Philippines, as well as those in Taiwan and China.
They heard the following allegations:
- From Taiwanese workers, routine violations of Apple and industry codes of conduct on work hours, days off, overtime, worker complaint mechanisms and the right to organize.
- From Chinese workers, violations of a major electronic industry group’s code of conduct on all of the above, and allegations of under-aged labor.
- From Filipina migrant workers, “placement fees” far in excess of Taiwan regulations, with fees and deductions amounting to nearly a full year’s salary — a “core” violation of Apple’s code.
But the news is not all bleak. Adams and McLaughlin also uncovered a novel factory program that supplies Hewlett-Packard — a strategy that involves labor rights groups and NGOs, and one that could serve as a blueprint for solving this perennial industry problem.
“We have to know more about how a product is made, and about the people who are really creating value for society,” labor rights activist Chan told them. “Workers deserve basic respect. I hope we can treat them as human beings, not just as working machines.”
Thomas Mucha is managing editor of correspondents for the international news site GlobalPost.
Photo: Three young workers from an electronics factory in southern China spoke said the factory’s treatment of its workers hasn’t improved since a strike last April — and may even be getting worse. (Sharron Lovell/GlobalPost)
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