Apple has a Code of Conduct for their suppliers. The iPod is produced in China by a company that was violating their Code of Conduct. Apple did not react until a British newspaper investigated and splashed the violations across their front page. Apple’s Code of Conduct is clearly a PR tool more than a human rights tool. Apple’s subsequent investigation turned up problems: (excerpts follow)

1. We did…find that employees worked longer hours than permitted by our Code of Conduct, which limits normal workweeks to 60 hours and requires at least one day off each week. We reviewed seven months of records from multiple shifts of different productions lines and found that the weekly limit was exceeded 35% of the time and employees worked more than six consecutive days 25% of the time.

2. We did find…that the pay structure was unnecessarily complex. An employee’s wage was comprised of several elements (base pay, skill bonus, attendance bonus, housing allowance, meal allowance, overtime), making it difficult to understand and communicate to employees. This structure effectively failed to meet our Code of Conduct requirement that how workers are paid must be clearly conveyed.

3. During our interviews with employees, we explicitly asked every line worker whether they had ever been subjected to or witnessed objectionable disciplinary punishment...Two employees reported that they had been disciplined by being made to stand at attention.

It seems like Apple has corrected the problems now and they have commissioned an independent third-party to review enforcement of their code of conduct’s health and safety provisions. Still, the lesson is that we cannot trust Apple to monitor their workplaces and ensure that their code is being enforced without media pressure on them and that Apple does not have ongoing third-party inspections that can be independently trusted. Apple is not a leader in this area.