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Comment by blumentopf | Hacker News Reader

I wonder about the implications this has with regards to human rights issues: Apple has always dismissed allegations of human rights violations with the argument that it's basically not their direct responsibility and that it's their suppliers' duty to adher to their supplier code of conduct.

Now if they own their suppliers, that argument suddenly wouldn't really be persuasive.

The human rights story comes to mind because I read this piece the other day and the description of the "man whose right hand was permanently curled into a claw from being smashed in a metal press at Foxconn" has remained vividly in my imagination: :-(

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/opinion/jobs-looked-to-the...

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"Apple has always dismissed allegations of human rights violations with the argument that it's basically not their direct responsibility and that it's their suppliers' duty to adher to their supplier code of conduct"

Wrong: http://www.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/

Apple actively monitors their suppliers to ensure compliance with their code conduct, and if violations are found they make the supplier fix them, compensate the workers for the abuse, and in some cases have dropped the supplier if they thought it wasn't acting fast enough or sincerely enough.

You're right about apple's PR response but they do have a well documented history of enabling worker abuse that suggests that this policy is either ineffective at best or total bs at worst

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/31/environmental-watchdog-repo...

The linked article alleges pollution not worker abuse. I'm not saying that (a) hazardous waste is ok or (b) that all of Apple's subcontractors behave perfectly, but this seems like a case of shifting ground to score points.

In general, Apple gets a lot of flak from environmental groups simply because it's the target that will make news. This means that Apple has to be especially careful. Would anyone care or be surprised if Dell were polluting an estuary?

I accidentally linked to the wrong article. Although that same report talked about there did actually pertain to workers' rights, it's not highlighted in that article.

Here are a couple others that come up in a quick search:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/technology/23apple.html?pa...

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/01/chinese-environmen...

and this (which is a little bit older)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/business/global/07suicide....

Whether or not Dell is guilty of the same thing is a different issue altogether and no less surprising or upsetting

His contention is that they own the equipment and they rent labor from their suppliers. The supplier remains the employer responsible for working conditions. This approach, if true, would give Apple control of supplier without owning them.

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