Apples unethical business practices

Yesterday the New York Times had a really good hard-hitting piece on Apple’s businesses practices. Apple manufactures all those gadgets we love to buy through Chinese companies it contracts with. And though Apple has a supplier code of conduct regarding work and safety standards, its suppliers don’t do a very good job meeting it:

Audits have found consistent violations of Apple’s code of conduct, according to summaries published by the company. In 2007, for instance, Apple conducted over three dozen audits, two-thirds of which indicated that employees regularly worked more than 60 hours a week. In addition, there were six “core violations,” the most serious kind, including hiring 15-year-olds as well as falsifying records.

Most notoriously, there were a bunch of suicides in recent years at Apple’s biggest supplier, Foxtron. In theory, Apple terminates relationships with such companies. In practice, they rarely do. Meanwhile, they push their suppliers to the breaking point to save costs.