So you’ve netted $156.8bn in your last trading year through sales. That’s almost 1,204 Gareth Bales. It would pay for every one of London’s 2,557,381 cars to park in the centre of town for over 10,000 hours. And here you are getting slated in the Guardian for not protecting the welfare of people who make the things that you sell to make that money. People will be furious!
Apple was recently in trouble for not carrying out proper due diligence checks on the suppliers that make components for its popular products. Then the focus was on Foxconn. Apple spent a fortune making sure that the company righted its wrongs…
…and then swiftly moved production to another company in China where manufacturing was cheaper. As it turns out Pegatron, the new suppliers, are now accused of “employing underage staff and discriminating against applicants shorter than 4ft 11in, older than 35 or from certain ethnic minorities.” And so again Apple has become embroiled in a PR nightmare.
I agree with the majority of people who have swiftly rebuked Apple for this mistake it has made for the second time. The company has begun auditing all levels of their supply chain in response to the Foxconn incident. “All” levels. That’s quite a commitment and it needs to be lauded for making it. In fact the company has said that the sites in question were audited and found compliant with its supply chain standards before the report against Pegatron was published.
But it’s also worth mentioning that it wasn’t only Apple’s supply chain policies Pegatron are accused of violating but also the laws of the People’s Republic of China.
In the UK, after the banking crisis of 2008, people were very quick to demand that government do more to stop investment bankers from taking high risk gambles with money that came from commercial and high street operations. And that was direct malpractice by the banks. Apple’s is malpractice through the supply chain. Malpractice by association.
Yes, Apple needs to have a much better control over what goes on throughout its supply chain. But the Chinese government need to enforce the laws that they put in place too.
Take that government of China. I bet they’re quaking in their boots now that Hugh Macpherson is on their case.