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Re:Apple goes to war with the BBC by sgnelson on Friday December 19, 2014 @10:41AM (#8772658)
While admittedly, I know nothing about Apple's internal policies and how it tracks these workers and the hours they're working, I wonder how real those numbers are. What I see often (very often) is that people see data and they take the numbers at face value. Could it possibly be that in order to appease Apple, the suppliers are cooking the books on the hours their employees are working? Obviously, in terms of profit margins, they want to squeeze out every penny of labor they can.

What type of data integrity system does Apple have set up to make sure that these are truly the case? With 1 million workers and multiple companies (and all the suppliers) does Apple truly have an independent employee (unaffected by any pressure from factory management) at every factory to watch over the labor standards? I kind of doubt it.

But yes, 60 hour work weeks, how noble of Apple. "Thank you sir, may I have another?" Personally, this really does make me rethink buying an Apple product.

Re:Apple goes to war with the BBC by notjackma on Friday December 19, 2014 @05:00PM (#8774783)
Yes, the suppliers are faking the hours. They show this in the film.

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Re:Apple goes to war with the BBC by qq66 on Friday December 19, 2014 @12:59PM (#8773420)
It should make you rethink buying any electronic product whatsoever, since Apple's supply-chain audits are, though insufficient, by far the most thorough of any company (since they face the most scrutiny).
Re:Apple goes to war with the BBC by sgnelson on Friday December 19, 2014 @05:09PM (#8774822)
Rather, I would say, "it should make me rethink buying any electronic product _not manufactured in the US or other developed world countries that have much higher, stricter standards on labor conditions_..."

Not everything is manufactured in China (though I certainly don't know of any laptops not made in China, and only a select few phones.)

edit: oh, and also, my main point was "how good are those audits?"

Re:Apple goes to war with the BBC by qq66 on Sunday December 21, 2014 @03:25AM (#8779275)
The audits are probably pretty bad, but also probably better than the audits that less scrutinized companies do.

What consumer electronics products are manufactured in the US... not counting "final assembly" in the US where the PCBs come in fully populated from China and are screwed into the enclosure in the US?