12-hour shifts and workers who fall asleep at work are some of the conditions that BBC journalists believe they have uncovered at a Chinese factory that makes Apple products.
Reporters from the British BBC program Panorama went undercover at Pegatron factory outside Shanghai to uncover the conditions workers who work with the production of Apple products like the iPhone 6.
They claim that exhausted workers fell asleep on the job during the twelve hours shifts and that one of the reporters worked 18 days continuous despite that he asked for a day off. Another reporter must have once worked 16 hours straight.
– Every time I came back to the dorm so I would not touch me. Although I was hungry, I would not stand up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I could not sleep at night because of stress, says one of the reporters.
Apple strongly disagree
Apple says they are strongly disagreed program conclusions.
They did not want to be interviewed, but said in a statement:
– We know of no other company that makes as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions. We work with suppliers to grab the failure and we see continuous and significant improvements, but we know that our work is never over.
Apple also says that it is very common that the workers taking a nap during the break but that they will verify a possible evidence on whether they fall asleep while working. According to Apple, the workers at the factory in section 55 hour work week.
Poor working at Chinese factories came into the spotlight in 2010 after a suicide wave at one of Apple’s suppliers.
wake of this, Apple announced standards for how factory workers were treated, writes the BBC. Some of the production was also moved to Pegatron factories outside Shanghai.
But according to Panorama broken these rules regularly. Overtime shall be voluntary, but none of panorma reporters should have got no choice if they wanted to work overtime or not. A journalist had also attend meetings before and after working hours without having received payment for this.
Checked mines in Indonesia
The BBC also went to the island Bangka in Indonesia where produced tin.
Apple says they are concerned ethical mining, but according to the BBC program can tin from illegal mines have ended up in Apple’s supplier chain.
Reporters saw including several children who used their bare hands to dig out material in mines.
Working conditions in the mines described as extremely dangerous.
– I’m afraid landslides and scared that soil will fall, it can happen, says one of the children told reporters. He works in the mines with his father.
One of them BBC spoke with told me that they sold tin into a smelter which stood at Apple’s supplier list.
Johnan Murod, which according to the BBC operates one of smelters on Apple list, says that 70 percent of tin export comes from small-scale mines.
– The smelter has everything from large-scale to small-scale mines. Everything is mixed. It is not possible to know what is legal what is illegal.
Complex situation
Apple says that the situation in Bangka is complex with tens of thousands of miners who sell tin via intermediaries.
– The simplest of Apple would be to unilaterally reject tin from Indonesian mines. It would be easy for us to do and shield us from criticism. But it would also be lazily and cowardly since it would not help to improve the situation. We have chosen to keep us engaged and try to get to changes on the ground.
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