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Apple are having a tough time right now in China, as 36 Chinese environmental groups are accusing them of failing to address concerns over pollution and worker health issues in factories which supply components for their products.
A report, due to be published later today shows that the groups are putting Apple last in a list of 29 multinational technology companies based on how each of these companies deals with inquiries about pollution and occuptional health hazards at factories throughout their supply chain.
China have been ramping up their environmental awareness campaign in China and organisations are trying to draw attention to important social issues such as pollution.
The environmental group have been investigating and trying to improve practices at 29 multinationals over the last year.
The same groups list Hewlett Packard, Vodafone, BT, Sharp and Hitachi as taking proactive steps to improve the situation and that they responded to the inquires and subsequently took steps to improve working conditions for their employees
Nokia, Sony and LG didn't fare so well as they were said to be ‘unresponsive' and not taking action to correct the problems. Apple however got the worst result, with the groups even claiming that they were ‘evasive'.
One of the more serious health hazard cases that Apple apparently didn't respond to was the poisoning of workers at Lianjian Technology, a subsidiary of Taiwan based Wintek which is a producer of touchscreens for Apple mobile devices.
49 workers were sent to hospital and diagnosed as having been poisoned with the chemical cleaning agent n-hexane in 2009, a case which was very high profile in China. To make matters worse many of these employees have been left with serious illness and say they have not received any response from Apple after making complaints.
A Wintek spokesperson said that the factory immediately stopped using the cleaner and has improved conditions at their factories after this event.
“Apple behaved differently from the other big brands and seemed totally complacent and unresponsive,” said to Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.
Appe have responded and a spokesman said that the company has a rigorous auditing programme that investigates its suppliers and other parts of the business supply chain.
KitGuru says: Not a very positive story for Apple, especially with booming sales figures and profits.
I read about this at the time and thought it was downplayed over in the US and UK badly. serious for Apple and they need to step up.
This is just chinese BS against foreign companies.
I am working in this country for the last 3 years. This country has the biggest no. of uneducated people. They do not understand what is environment protection. The waters are dirty, the streets are dirty and the air is full of dust and strong smells. You should see when the garbage truck is coming to pick up the garbage.
And another problem is that chinese workers do not understand what is safety. If you tell them that something is not safe, the answer will be something like: NEVER MIND!!! Working with chemicals you have to take precautions, but they do not care for safety.
Chinese government does not care for the people, only for their local friends to get bigger businesses. For the last 10-5 years the government did not care for the environment and now they care??? Read between the lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: I do not have any sympathy for Apple! This is what is happening in this country but does not get told out side.