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Op vrijdag 19 december 2014 12:47 schreef Basp1 het volgende:Te triest voor woorden dat een bedrijf als apple met zulke mega winstmarges per toestel dit toe staat, en dan alleen maar met wat vage antwoorden komt dat ze het wederom gaan onderzoeken.
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Op vrijdag 19 december 2014 13:01 schreef SeLang het volgende:[..]
Het zou mij echt verbazen als ze dit bewust toestaan. Ik weet uit eigen ervaring (in China gewoond en daar gewerkt in een fabriek die voor grote merken dingen produceert) dat dit soort grote westerse bedrijven audits doen van de fabriek en checkt op dit soort praktijken of andere zaken die tegen de Chinese wet in gaan, al was het maar om reputatieschade te voorkomen.
Het kan natuurlijk wel zijn dat ze laks met die audits zijn omgegaan of dat hun subcontractor ze misleidt. Daarom ben ik wel benieuwd wat Apple daar zelf over te zeggen heeft en dingen als wanneer ze voor het laatst hebben geaudit en wat de resultaten waren. Maar daar zullen we vast niets over horen tijdens de documentaire.
Apple doet audits. Tevens vind ik het vreemd dat Basp1 lijkt te denken dat audits doen betekent dat alle problemen als sneeuw voor de zon verdwijnen. Volgens mij denkt hij niet echt na.
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Op vrijdag 19 december 2014 13:04 schreef Basp1 het volgende:[..]
Nee want zoals we in het artikel zien willen ze zelf niet aan het woord komen. Als apple dat wel zou doen en de audits kan overleggen zou men een punt hebben. Ik geloof er weinig van dat apple alle sub/sub/sub contractors die rotzooi voor hun spullen produceren audit.
Dat doen ze dus wel.
Hier het uitgebreide antwoord van Apple.
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UK Team,
As you know, Apple is dedicated to the advancement of human rights and equality around the world. We are honest about the challenges we face and we work hard to make sure that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.
Last night, the BBC's Panorama program called those values into question. Like many of you, Tim and I were deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way.
I'd like to give you facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their program.
Panorama showed some of the shocking conditions around tin mining in Indonesia. Apple has publicly stated that tin from Indonesia ends up in our products, and some of that tin likely comes from illegal mines. Here are the facts:
Tens of thousands of artisanal miners are selling tin through many middlemen to the smelters who supply to component suppliers who sell to the world. The government is not addressing the issue, and there is widespread corruption in the undeveloped supply chain. Our team visited the same parts of Indonesia visited by the BBC, and of course we are appalled by what's going on there.
Apple has two choices: We could make sure all of our suppliers buy tin from smelters outside of Indonesia, which would probably be the easiest thing for us to do and would certainly shield us from criticism. But it would be the lazy and cowardly path, because it would do nothing to improve the situation for Indonesian workers or the environment since Apple consumes a tiny fraction of the tin mined there. We chose the second path, which is to stay engaged and try to drive a collective solution.
We spearheaded the creation of an Indonesian Tin Working Group with other technology companies. Apple is pushing to find and implement a system that holds smelters accountable so we can influence artisanal mining in Indonesia. It could be an approach such as "bagging and tagging" legally mined material, which has been successful over time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are looking to drive similar results in Indonesia, which is the right thing to do.
Panorama also made claims about our commitment to working conditions in our factories. We know of no other company doing as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions, to discover and investigate problems, to fix and follow through when issues arise, and to provide transparency into the operations of our suppliers.
I want you to know that more than 1400 of your Apple coworkers are stationed in China to manage our manufacturing operations. They are in the factories constantly - talented engineers and managers who are also compassionate people, trained to speak up when they see safety risks or mistreatment. We also have a team of experts dedicated solely to driving compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct across our vast supply chain.
In 2014 alone, our Supplier Responsibility team completed 630 comprehensive, in-person audits deep into our supply chain. These audits include face-to-face interviews with workers, away from their managers, in their native language. Sometimes critics point to the discovery of problems as evidence that the process isn't working. The reality is that we find violations in every audit we have ever performed, no matter how sophisticated the company we're auditing. We find problems, we drive improvement, and then we raise the bar.
Panorama's report implied that Apple isn't improving working conditions. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are just a few examples:
Several years ago, the vast majority of workers in our supply chain worked in excess of 60 hours, and 70+ hour workweeks were typical. After years of slow progress and industry excuses, Apple decided to attack the problem by tracking the weekly hours of over one million workers, driving corrective actions with our suppliers and publishing the results on our website monthly - something no other company had ever done. It takes substantial effort, and we have to weed out false reporting, but it's working. This year, our suppliers have achieved an average of 93% compliance with our 60-hour limit. We can still do better.
And we will.
Our auditors were the first to identify and crack down on a ring of unscrupulous labor brokers who were holding workers' passports and forcing them to pay exorbitant fees. To date, we have helped workers recoup $20 million in excessive payments like these.
We've gone far beyond auditing and corrective actions by creating educational programs for workers in the same facilities where they make our products. More than 750,000 people have taken advantage of these college-level courses and enrichment programs, and the feedback we get from students is inspiring
I will not dive into every issue raised by Panorama in this note, but you can rest assured that we take all allegations seriously, and we investigate every claim. We know there are a lot of issues out there, and our work is never done. We will not rest until every person in our supply chain is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.
If you'd like to learn more about our Supplier Responsibility program, I encourage you and our customers to visit our website at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.
Thanks for your time and your support.
Jeff