Today in a statement, Apple said it had stopped giving “new business” to Pegatron Corp. after discovered several weeks ago that the labor code had been violated on Pegatron's factories in Shanghai and Kunshan. However, China Labor Watch questions Apple’s statement to be reliable and accurate according to the following facts.
The executive director of CLW, Li Qiang wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook on September 8th to inform him that CLW had received complaints from student workers who were arranged to work at Kunshan Pegatron and were prohibited from leaving the factory. Furthermore, workers were not paid full wages and promised rewards. On September 10th, Apple Supplier Responsibility Team responded in an email to China Labor Watch claiming that except for the incident regarding the disrespectful behavior of managers who were throwing workers' factory cards on the ground, Apple denied CLW’s other allegations related to forced labor conditions in Pegatron’s factories.
Li Qiang wrote to Mr. Tim Cook again on October 13th and provided him other details including the contact phone number of a student intern worker who was forced to work overtime at Pegatron’s factory. CLW also contacted Yuan Yang at the Financial Times who went to Kunshan to investigate and was preparing to publish her report. However, Apple responded to CLW last Friday that prior to receiving CLW’s email, their employees on site at Pegatron Kunshan “had discovered that students had been misclassified as regular workers”. And today, Bloomberg published a report on Apple’s discovery of labor violations and suspension of new business with Pegatron before Yuan Yang could complete her investigation.
Apple’s audit failed to recognize serious labor violations on supplier factories. On September 10th, they denied the labor violations despite evidence provided by CLW. Since then, Fu Jie, a dispatch worker has died after he was forced working overtime in the Chinese National Day holiday week. His family protested at the Pegatron Kunshan factory gate demanding information and a thorough investigation into his death. So far his family members have been taken away by the police to the local Public Security Bureau for three times where they were detained, the longest one for more than 12 hours. And Apple still denies that any workers have died at the factory.