the real price of computers is child labour

Apple found more than 91 children working at its suppliers last year, nine times as many as the previous year, according to its annual report on its manufacturers.

The US company has also acknowledged for the first time that 137 workers were poisoned at a Chinese firm making its products and said less than a third of the facilities it audited were complying with its code on working hours.

via guardian.co.uk

Here's more in the report: multiple suicides at a supplier; a decrease in compliance on working hours of a max of, get this, 60 hours a week; only 57% compliance with codes to prevent injuries (and how minimal were they?). 137 workers were poisoned by n-hexane. This is what is known, how much slips by?

This is the cost of cheap manufacture in a foreign jurisdiction, where laws differ and oversight is more difficult.

Here's a picture of where the garbage ends up

Filed under: Concerning Tagged: working conditions of Apple employees in China