Apple's 2011 Supplier Responsibility Report released; contains special section on Foxconn suicides

Apple has released its annual Supplier Responsibility at Apple report. The report, released on Monday, Feb. 14, 2011, covers the company's suppliers as reported for the year 2010, with notes that Apple discovered violations such as underage workers, bribery, worker endangerment, and "involuntary labor." In addition Apple had a special section in the report focused on the highly publicized Foxconn suicides.

Apple's latest report covered 2010 audits of 127 facilities globally. Thirty were repeat audits; ninety-seven were first-time audits. That number is 14 higher in terms of new audits than in 2009, and nearly doubled the number of repeat audits. Many of these facilities are used by other high-tech companies, yet Apple's report said that more than 40 percent of them stated that Apple was the first company ever to have audited them.

Apple found 37 "core violations" across the 127 facilities located across Asia. A "core violation" is defined by Apple as a serious breach of the Cupertino, CA company's code of conduct. According to the report, Apple discovered 18 facilities where workers had paid excessive recruitment fees, which Apple labels "involuntary labor;" ten facilities where underage workers had been hired (91 of them); two instances of worker endangerment; four facilities where records were falsified; one case of bribery; and one case of coaching workers on how to answer questions.

Many of these types of issues have been reported before by investigative reporting shows such as "Dateline: NBC."

Most cases were resolved by Apple requesting, and getting corrective action by the facilities involved. In some cases, however, the company decided the violations were too severe and Apple severed ties to the facility. The facility involved in bribery instance was one such instance. The Apple report didn't name the facilities which violated Apple rules.

In terms of Foxconn, Apple added a special section to the report about the company. Foxconn is one of Apple's largest manufacturing contractors, but was faced with serious problems and bad PR over a series of suicides at its Shenzhen operation.

Apple sent COO Tim Cook, who is now handling Apple's day-to-day operations in Steve Jobs' absence, as well as a team of executives and suicide prevention specialists to visit Foxconn in June of last year. Not only that, Apple commissioned an independent team of suicide prevention specialists to spend time at Foxconn.

In July of 2010, that team:

• Surveyed more than 1000 workers about their quality of life, sources of stress, psychological health, and other work-related factors. The team designed the questionnaire, delivered and collected it, and tabulated the results without Foxconn’s involvement.
• Interviewed workers face to face, met separately with their managers, and evaluated working and living conditions firsthand.
• Reviewed the facts of each suicide and the known circumstances behind them.
• Evaluated Foxconn’s management of the crisis, assessing the effectiveness of counseling services and emergency response systems.

The results of the investigation was as follows:

The team commended Foxconn for taking quick action on several fronts simultaneously, including hiring a large number of psychological counselors, establishing a 24-hour care center, and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides. The independent team also found that Foxconn had worked openly with many outside experts and government officials in reacting to the crisis. Most important, the investigation found that Foxconn’s response had definitely saved lives.

Several other high-tech companies, such as Nintendo, Dell, Nokia, and HP, use Foxconn's Shenzhen facility. It was Apple that many people focused on, however, because of its use of that facility for iPhone and iPad production.