China Labor Watch just released a new report investigating working conditions at 10 of Apple’s suppliers in China, including the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. The New York-based group was able to collect this information even though local authorities in China sometimes literally kicked its investigators out of town. As others have also determined, including the Fair Labor Association in a study sponsored by Apple, CLW found working conditions at the Foxconn factory to be severe, with workers employed long hours at low pay under harsh living conditions. The CLW report also breaks new ground in three areas.  The report finds:

• Deplorable labor practices are not just characteristic of Foxconn factories, but exist in factories throughout Apple’s supply chain. The report documents, for instance, that employees in most of the factories typically work 11 hours a day and can only take one day off a month (low wage levels and management pressure compel them to work such hours); that employee dorms are frequently overcrowded, dirty and lacking in facilities; and that there is little ability for workers at Apple suppliers to push for reasonable working conditions on their own.
• As bad as working conditions at Foxconn are, they are even worse at some of the other factories in China that supply Apple. The report flags the three Riteng factories investigated as particularly difficult places to work. The table below includes key findings from the report. It indicates: Riteng workers typically work 12 hours per day nearly every day of the year (including weekends and holidays), compared to 10 hours per day at the Foxconn factories, with some days off.  The average wage for the Riteng workers amounts to $1.28 per hour, or well below the already quite low average hourly wage of $1.65 for Foxconn workers. Health and safety conditions are much worse at the Riteng factories than at the Foxconn factory, and living conditions are worse for the Riteng workers as well.

• Certain serious labor problems have so far been neglected in the discussion of work practices at Apple suppliers in China.  In particular, the new report documents the troubling yet common practice by Apple suppliers of using dispatched labor. This practice enables factories to reduce the compensation and benefits they provide to their workers, makes it even easier to compel workers to work exceptionally long overtime hours, and creates damaging uncertainty over who is responsible for any worker injuries.

In recent months, stories about when the next iPhone will be released or whether Apple will add a television to its product line have helped push the troubling issues concerning how Apple’s products are made to the sidelines. The new CLW report is a needed reminder that those issues should not be forgotten. Apple has the responsibility to ensure that basic labor standards are met not just at Foxconn factories, but also at the factories of other suppliers that have received less media attention. And, as I summarized previously, Apple easily has the resources to advance any necessary changes.