Apple reveals increasing child labor problem

2/21/2011 10:26 AM EST

Atlast APPLE has realised that it has to act to stop the labour law violations. This is the right step in the right direction from APPLE.This would definitely increase the reputation of the APPLE inc as employee friendly firm.

2/21/2011 11:34 AM EST

Good effort by Apple. I hope more companies can follow this path and restore dignity to labor by allowing kids to be kids again. Apple is a cool place

2/21/2011 12:09 PM EST

Apple should lead a novel effort and to move at least some of its manufacturing back to this country (USA).

2/21/2011 2:25 PM EST

Allowing kids to be kids "again"? Adults-only labor restrictions are a relatively new phenomenon. Now people get to keep being kids well into their 30s.

2/21/2011 4:11 PM EST

Another curious cultural twist on this is that, in China, people are traditionally defined to have an age of "1" at birth. According to my wife (from China), it's more or less a nod to the fact that they were conceived nearly a year earlier.

2/21/2011 4:24 PM EST

China elite is working hard on the internet censor effectively. If they spare some resource on this issue and the quality control as they do in the intellegence gathering, there will be no problem at all in China. Basically the government is taking a stance to support instead of enforcing. Apple is a foreign company and shouldn't the responsibility for her to enforce, it is Chinese government's law enforcers' responsibility...

2/21/2011 4:27 PM EST

Flipping Burgers in the US or trouble shooting code in China. Young teens want money to buy things. The only difference being is that in the US, flipping burgers is looked as a form of maturity while using brain power and working on microprocessors at a young age is framed as sweatshop labor. How about if the US focuses on amping up their math and science teachers and programs so that US teens don't have to stoop to flipping burgers for fun money???????

2/21/2011 4:37 PM EST

If work is so bad, how about the "horrors" of
child labor in the US !

Why do we have a summer vacation?
So children can work!

Why do we allow 13 year old kids to get driver
licenses if they live on a farm?
So children can work!

There is nothing magic about a 16th birthday.

2/21/2011 4:45 PM EST

Incredible! Praising the virtues of a firm for its defense of the children of China presents a seriously flawed view of the world.
What the hell was Apple doing in China in the first place. Or is politically incorrect to suggest we take food from the mouths of babes when there's a significant unemployment problem right here in the United States?

2/22/2011 2:34 AM EST

Apple should allow child labor under 16 but only for partime work. These young people really need the money to help out the family. Apple can help by hiring them partime basis at the same time let them continue school work. It is hard working people who will want to learn in school while helping out the faimly income at the same time. Give these young kids a chance to make some money. China is still a very poor nation overall. 800 million people in China are underclass making less than $2 bucks a day.

2/22/2011 2:40 AM EST

Do you see young people in America worked and then help the family out? No, American youths do not work to help out the family or even go to school to learn and study hard because our government pays everything for them including free healthcare, school and food. No need for young people to work to help out the family anymore. I guess America must be rich. This is why your taxes WILL go up again and again.

2/22/2011 5:05 AM EST

apart from the child labor, I have seen some Chinese companies working for IPHONE applications development, forcing adult workers to put in an average of 12 hours per day ( and no weekends and no excuses even for females) without paying any extra money.

2/22/2011 9:57 AM EST

Apple had to start monitoring its suppliers after too many Foxconn Highdives. By actually reporting child labor statistics instead of sweeping them under the rug, Apple gets a big PR win. I wonder if they have a report about sweatshop working conditions for those over 16.

2/22/2011 12:28 PM EST

Many of us in the semiconductor industry have signed on to the EICC or UN Global Compact to reduce or eliminate child labor, among other issues. A company like Apple has LOTS of leverage to get their suppliers to do the same...if they want to persuade them. If all of Apple's customers knew, and cared, about these issues and put pressure on Apple then change would happen. Any bad publicity that endangers the bottom line can have results, esepcially since that is all Apple really cares about.

2/22/2011 12:39 PM EST

The companies should have a stict rules to provide the contracts to the chinese manufacturing companies. Those who are not adhered have to be given a strong couple warnings and then if still there is a lapse probably they can better stop giving out any orders.

2/22/2011 2:21 PM EST

Are we willing to pay another $25/phone in order to have a "child labor free" sticker on our iphone?

2/22/2011 6:06 PM EST

In terms of humanity, I agree with what Apple does. In terms of management, I don't understand why Apple would bother. At the end of the day, Apple is outsourcing the works to elsewhere where the labor law is likely different from that in the States. If the manufacturer is violating the law to deliver a product the Apple, shall Apple be punished or shall the manufacturer be. There are reasons there are underaged labors. We can't simply make an assumption that the underaged labors earn low wages compared to the counterpart. We need to understand the developing world, not using our perception of living in a developed world.

2/23/2011 6:35 PM EST

F ellows, let dont forget the basic subject of this article. Working kids!

Let be honest, who would like to or allow their kids at western countries to work as hell, and get paid ridiculously at factories where people are behaved as robots? No matter for whom, for apple, contractora etc. its the basic of human being, kids should live, be as kids, we adults should guarantee that they d live so. Its black humor if at our hometown we talk about human rights but when subject is related to pampering, serving us, playing 3 monkeies. No matter its Apple, samsung or someone else we, people of earth should fight for exploiting children

2/24/2011 8:32 AM EST

Child labor is extremely difficult to rein in. It's there in China, it's there in India and in countless other countries. The parents of such kids cases either support it or just cannot force the kids to go to school, they being illiterate themselves and cannot really get their kids to imbibe that habit of studying. In a short while, some of the kids cannot cope at school and drop out. The labor market picks them up like hot cakes. The society at large (I speak for India here) condones this and only a few social activists stand up against child labor.

2/25/2011 2:36 PM EST

It is interesting to to me how many different realities are represented here and how we think everyone should live in our reality. Does this mean there is no such thing as wrong, I don't think so but getting everyone to agree on it maybe very difficult as they are fond of saying in Japan. As several people mentioned we don't even all count age the same.

2/25/2011 3:29 PM EST

At least they can get kids to work... I had to pay my nephew $10/hr to help me cut firewood for his grandmother this winter, and he stopped after only two days around his Christmas break from school. We had to switch from hauling small square hay bales to the large round ones we can move with a tractor because "kids" are too busy here in Missouri to work on a farm in the summer time. I'd be happy to pay Chinese kids $10/hr if they can get over here to run a chain saw and use a bale hook - it would give me more time to write software...

2/25/2011 4:32 PM EST

I find it hard to believe that there were only 91 cases of underage workers when the factories employ 800K employees! I'm guessing these were only the ones who were not clever enought to not get caught. I am guessing if they were not working in the factory, they would have been in the fields instead where the pay is even worse. In a poor country it is hard to enforce child labor laws because everone in the family needs to contribute. I doubt the parents of those child laborers were complaining. I am not condoning this, but our standards are not universal.

2/27/2011 11:06 AM EST

Ther is a big shortage of low cost work force every where. So the children who are not properly guided by their parents enter into child labour. If they do not do this no place for them till they are 16 or 18.Where will they go ?What will they do? Those with good IQ can be put back in schools and the others ?

2/27/2011 10:48 PM EST

I wonder what the options are for the youth in China? If they don't go to work in the assembly factory is there something else that they can do? Are the alternatives safer, better conditions, better pay or worse? I would love to see more production here in the USA but the economics currently don't support it. If these companies are doing more good then harm I wonder if Apple's attempts to protect itself PR wise are helping or hurting the very people (kids) that we are concerned about?

3/2/2011 7:52 PM EST

The trick is to say to their supplier if you employ a child under aged our business goes elsewhere and actually do it. They shouldn't have all there manufacturing in one place anyway. The only thing that works with people that abuse children is a big stick. BTW, manufacturing in the US would add about $10-$20 to the average product. With Apple's enormous margins they could easily build in the US and remain competitive. They'd only have to cut their to exec's salaries few bucks.