Following the Times' damning investigative series on the human costs of its cheap electronics and Mike Daisey's scathing one-man show, Apple has announced that they have asked the independent group to conduct audits of Apple's assembly suppliers in China. “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
The Fair Labor Association will also identify specific factories where labor abuses are found, and the first FLA visits began this morning. “The inspections now underway are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports," Cook added.
Apple expects the first results to be available by early March, and the scope of the inspections will cover 90% of the factories where the company's products are made.
Last week, CNN interviewed an 18-year-old employee of Foxconn, the company that Apple uses to assemble many of its products:
"During my first day of work, an older worker said to me, 'why did you come to Foxconn? Don't ever think about it again and leave right now'," said Chen, who plans to return to her studies at a Chongqing university soon. "Foxconn employees have a saying, "they use women as men and men as machines."
