Apple supplier in trouble with labour laws again

But Apple does not use sweat shops

The fruity cargo cult Apple is in PR hot water again after one of its key suppliers was found to be flouting the overtime rules which it set.

A new report from watchdog group China Labor Watch (CLW) says Apple’s overtime policies are routinely violated at Pegatron, which is based in China, are working more hours than Apple allows.

Apple is always on a back foot because it wants to avoid the sort of backlash that Nike suffered when its products were accused of being made in sweat shops. Since workers at another supplier, Foxconn started topping themselves, the fruity cargo cult has been leaning on suppliers to be a little nicer to their staff. It has had some success, sort of.

Apple’s policy says supply chain workers can’t work more than 60 hours per week and should have at least one day per week off. While this sounds like hell on toast for European workers, it is supposed to be quite good in Chinese. But apparently that is not enough for Pentatron.

CLW found several instances where workers clocked more than 80 hours of work per week and some cases where interns were able to get overtime pay even though they aren’t allowed to.

According to CLW, Pegatron workers feel forced to go for overtime because base wages are low and they need the overtime pay to get by. The watchdog interviewed approximately 100 Pegatron workers in 2015 and 2016 for the report and reviewed their pay stubs.

This finding is at odds with what  Bloomberg reporter Shai Oster found when visiting Pegatron and wrote that the factory now institutes ID checks to make sure workers don’t take too much overtime.

CLW claims Oster’s visit was stage managed and did not allow access to areas where workers were working too much overtime.