Report Blasts Safety at Apple's China Factories

Company ranks dead last, say Chinese environmental groups
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 21, 2011 11:55 AM CST
Report Blasts Safety at Apple's China Factories
Pedestrians walk past an Apple Store in San Francisco, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011.   (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Chinese environmental groups say Apple hasn’t responded to health and pollution concerns at supplier factories. A report ranks 29 multinational tech companies on their responsiveness to inquiries about conditions at supplier factories; Apple comes in last, the Financial Times reports. The report cites Apple’s failure to respond to poisonings that hospitalized 49 workers at one site.

“Apple behaved differently from the other big brands and seemed totally complacent and unresponsive,” the report’s main author told the FT. The criticism follows a spate of suicides at another Apple supplier, Foxconn, and Ariel Schwartz of Fast Company says the company better be careful. “If Apple continues to ignore supply chain issues, the problems will only grow—and eventually, they will come back to haunt the company.”
(More Apple stories.)

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