Apple just published a report of it’s findings during an investigation into one of it’s suppliers (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. aka Foxconn)after a report about mistreatment of employees.
I must say that I’m rather impressed with the report they released, it’s more thorough than I ever would have expected to see. Noteworthy is confirmation of one of the pictures showing an open area with rows of beds rather than separate rooms for workers. It’s said to be temporary and resolved soon. Pay structure was too complex (and said to have been simplified now) among other significant findings.
Most interesting was the Apple “Supplier Code of Conduct” they published. The document (version 1.0 in the footer) dates from November 2005, before this controversy. It seems to be pretty thorough for the most part.
Lastly they state they will be using Verité and that they joined the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC) Implementation Group.
Very interesting is that Apple uses less than 15% of the facilities capacity. Considering all the stuff they make for various customers (Dell, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola) it’s interesting Apple got singled out. Is it really specific to the iPod line? That’s one thing that wasn’t answered in the report. Wikipedia touches on Foxconn’s far reach a little bit here.