Apple has cut ties with a Chinese supplier after an audit found that it had hired a large number of underage employees, according to the company’s latest Supplier Responsibility Report.

Apple received a lot of criticism in previous years about the treatment of workers at China’s Foxconn factories that make many Apple products, so it promised to step up its efforts to create better working environments. In 2012, Apple said that it conducted 393 audits at all levels of its supply chain, which is a 72 percent increase over 2011. The number of workers covered in these audits number more than 1.5 million.

One of those audits found that Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics had 74 violations for hiring workers under the age of 16, which led to the company getting the ax from Apple. It also went after a Chinese regional labor agency that forged documents to get underage workers hired at factories.

The company writes:

In January 2012, for example, we audited a supplier, Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co., Ltd. (PZ) that produces a standard circuit board component used by many other companies in many industries. Our auditors were dismayed to discover 74 cases of workers under age 16—a core violation of our Code of Conduct. As a result, we terminated our business relationship with PZ.

But we didn’t stop there. We also learned that one of the region’s largest labor agencies, Shenzhen Quanshun Human Resources Co., Ltd. (Quanshun), which is registered in both the Shenzhen and Henan provinces, was responsible for knowingly providing the children to PZ. In fact, to obtain the workers, this agency conspired with families to forge age verification documents and make the workers seem older than they were.

We also alerted the provincial governments to the actions of Quanshun. The agency had its business license suspended and was fined. The children were returned to their families, and PZ was required to pay expenses to facilitate their successful return. In addition, the company that subcontracted its work to PZ was prompted by our findings to audit its other subcontractors for underage labor violations—proving that one discovery can have far-reaching impact.

Additionally, Apple said that it found no cases of underage labor at any of its final assembly suppliers. Other things Apple said it wants to discourage at partner facilities are unsafe work environments and excessive overtime.

Top photo via Apple

The company has taken advantage of low wages and other manufacturing advantages in China for long enough. Now that attention has been focused on the working conditions at factories in China, Foxconn has pledged to raise wages and make improvements. Other suppliers will also have to meet tougher standards for workers. That’s going to raise the cost of doing business in China.

Already, labor shortages are driving up the costs of Chinese-based manufacturing facilities. Shipping costs are higher, too. Apple should bring manufacturing back to the U.S., not as a charity for American workers or as a publicity stunt, but because it makes good business sense. It is our responsibility to tell Apple this.

I realized this when I read stories about worker conditions in China, such as the Fair Labor Association’s recent report on factory conditions. We can make those problems in China go away by creating the same jobs here, under better conditions. In a conversation about Apple and Foxconn, Ira Glass of This American Life talked with New York Times writer Charles Duhigg — who wrote a groundbreaking piece on Apple’s iEconomy — about how our own desire for inexpensive Apple products is a root cause for worker abuse in China.

Duhigg said about Glass’s own feelings of guilt, “Should you feel bad about that? I don’t know, that’s for you to judge, but I think the way to pose that question is: Do you feel comfortable knowing that iPhones and iPads and, and other products could be manufactured in less harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions exist and perpetuate because of an economy that you are supporting with your dollars?”

Glass replied, “Right. I am the direct beneficiary of those harsh conditions.” And Duhigg said, “You’re not only the direct beneficiary; you are actually one of the reasons why it exists. If you made different choices, if you demanded different conditions, if you demanded that other people be, enjoy the same work protections that you yourself enjoy, then, then those conditions would be different overseas.”

This American Life had to retract its piece because actor Mike Daisey fabricated some parts of his piece on Foxconn’s labor abuses, but those abuses have been documented elsewhere.

The choice I am making is to ask Apple to reconsider the arguments that pushed it to China, where Foxconn employs more than a million workers. There’s a growing chorus on this issue. But it’s not just something that organized labor can back. Like the cause for better education, it’s something that the Silicon Valley intelligentsia — and everyone else — can get behind.

The arguments against the U.S. have been clear for a long time, and even President Obama has had to face a lot of cold, hard facts that Apple has brought up as reasons for keeping the jobs overseas. Steve Jobs, Apple’s late CEO, told Obama that the manufacturing jobs aren’t coming back.

The list of reasons is long: American workers here are overpaid relative to Asian workers. The infrastructure for manufacturing plants — such as all of the surrounding suppliers — has melted away. It takes far too long to find enough manufacturing and engineering talent to staff a factory. American universities aren’t churning out enough graduates to feed the technology companies. Chinese factories can scale up and scale down as needed.

But other companies have successfully manufactured high-tech products in the U.S. Intel has major factories in Oregon, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. It also has a factory in China, but the lion’s share of its work is in the U.S., and the world’s biggest chip maker invests about $5 billion a year in its American factories. What is Apple’s excuse? Apple generates more profits than Intel, so why should it care that China’s costs might be lower?  Its stock price has never been higher, and its stockpile of cash is so big that it is now giving it back to shareholders. It doesn’t need to pinch pennies like it once did when it was in danger of going out of business. Apple doesn’t have to abandon China; it could simply add factories in the U.S. that balance out its manufacturing sites.

I’m not asking Apple to do this purely for bleeding heart reasons. Doing the right thing is a way for Apple and the rest of Silicon Valley to give back, for sure. The U.S. has to step up by producing more engineering graduates, and U.S. suppliers have to improve their quality to match China’s. But China’s alleged advantages over manufacturing in the U.S. are dwindling as workers in that country receive better benefits.

Think of the advantages Apple could accrue. Its product engineers and designers either have to go to China to inspect the manufacturing lines or stay on the phone late at night working through problems. What if they could drive to the factory or speak to someone in the plant in the same time zone? It would vastly improve the quality of life for those engineers and designers, who are Apple’s best resource. Apple could probably do a better job of keeping its secrets, which seem to leak profusely from its Chinese supply chain, and it would no longer have to support jobs in the country where its goods are pirated in huge numbers.

It would be a lot easier to for Apple to monitor worker issues such as coerced overtime or other manufacturer misbehavior. Shipping costs would dwindle. Apple could receive its chips via trucks from Samsung’s factories in the U.S. or from Intel’s. Shipping costs via roads in the U.S. will be cheaper than sending them via increasingly expensive air freight or cargo ships. After all, the price of oil keeps rising. The automation trend, where robots assemble products and eliminate menial jobs, also favors the U.S. Robots in the U.S. are likely going to cost the same as robots in China.

Apple would also get a PR benefit out of bringing jobs back. The company already puts on its packages that its products are “designed in California.” It could also say that they are designed and manufactured here as well.

The company is now the largest tech company in the world in terms of market capitalization. It has to show leadership and behave responsibly. Apple has a responsibility to its shareholders, but I don’t think those people are going to suffer, given the incredible run of Apple’s stock price so far. If Apple spread its manufacturing out, it could reduce its risks to natural disasters and so shareholders could actually feel more secure. Apple also has a responsibility to its customers, employees, and the world. None of those would be hurt by Apple extending manufacturing to the U.S.

Apple has around 43,000 or so employees in the U.S. already, but more than 700,000 people are working overseas on Apple products. But manufacturing jobs could benefit the economy and the work force in a much more impactful way. Apple declined to comment on this reported and noted it recently announced it has created 500,000 Apple-related jobs in the U.S. since 2007. But 1,000 new manufacturing jobs creates about 5,712 other jobs.

What Apple has done so far is outstanding. But it is not enough. Tim Cook is a supply-chain wizard. If anyone can, he should be able to figure out how to bring more jobs back home.

Photo credits: IHS iSuppli and DatenRATTE on Flickr

The Fair Labor Association released its report on Apple’s Foxconn factory audit today, finding serious worker-rights violation and getting an agreement from both companies to take immediate action.

“The findings of FLA’s nearly month-long investigation revealed serious and pressing noncompliances with FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct, as well as Chinese labor law,” said the FLA in its report. You can read the full report below.

According to the FLA, its staff spent over 3,000 hours inside three Foxconn factories — in Guanlan, Longhua, and Chengdu — observing labor conditions, as well as chewing through policies and records. FLA anonymously surveyed over 35,000 Foxconn employees about their working conditions, including overtime hours, pay, health and safety, and the overall environment of the Foxconn factories.

Based on all this data, the FLA found that in all three factories, employees spent more hours working at peak production time than is legal in China, or under the FLA Code. Some workers were not given their 24-hours of downtime, and had to work up to seven days in a row.

The survey revealed that employees are particularly worried about becoming sick from aluminum dust. The FLA believes Foxconn has already put procedures into place, however, to protect workers from the dust, which previously caused an explosion at the Chengdu factory. Workers tend to feel like they don’t have access to the safety committees who make decisions on heath and safety procedures at Foxconn. Committees are intended to be a representation of the broader Foxconn community.

“It should be noted that committees may not be truly representative of the workers, because management nominates candidates for election,” said the FLA in the report.

Workers are, however, paid over the legal minimum in China, though overtime is an issue. The FLA believes 14 percent of overtime workers are not being paid fully for their hours. This is because Foxconn only plays employees based on 30-minute increments. The association makes the point that if a worker spends 58 minutes on the assembly line, he or she would only be paid for a half-hour of work.

After looking at all of these issues, the FLA has asked Foxconn and Apple to take several steps to improve working conditions. Both companies have agreed to the steps, which include opening up avenues between workers and the health and safety committees, and changing the way accidents are reported. Foxconn promises to have all of its employees working the legal amount of hours or less by July 1, 2013, without disrupting wage laws.

Apple made the decision to join the FLA soon after reports about poor working conditions in its Foxconn factory emerged. The move was intended to curb criticism and add a more transparency to Apple’s supplier network, which has traditionally been veiled. Tales of long hours, very low wages, and child and slave labor have been among some of the complaints against Apple, which chief executive Tim Cook says he greatly wants to reduce.

“If we find a supplier that intentionally hires under-aged labor, it’s a firing offense,” he said at the Goldman Sachs technology conference in February. “We don’t let anyone cut corners on safety.”

The company promised to publish audits performed by the Fair Labor Association to its website, but some people are still not convinced. SumOfUs, an activist group that has been following Apple’s Foxconn debacle from the beginning, believes joining the FLA is really just a public relations move. Members of the FLA are, in fact, paying members, and thus the objectivity of the FLA’s reports is questionable. SumOfUS doesn’t believe the FLA reports are whitewashed, however, saying:

“A critical report from the FLA will not, in and of itself, constitute proof that a new day is dawning in Apple’s supply chain. It will only be proof that the FLA and Apple are smart enough to understand that no one, at this point, is going to be fooled by a whitewash.”

We have reached out to the FLA and Apple and will update this post upon hearing back.

The main FLA report:

First image via ABC’s iFactory, second image via FLA

The exchange, according to a Jan. 12, 2012 report in the New York Times, occurred in Feb. 2011 at a dinner in Silicon Valley. The late Steve Jobs was right. Even though advances in automation, 3D printing, and the rising costs of labor in China will cause manufacturing to return to U.S. shores, we won’t need the millions of factory workers we needed in the past. That’s because the manufacturing jobs we need filled today are different from the ones we sent abroad. These jobs require fewer workers with very different skills.

Does that mean we are we destined to suffer from chronic unemployment? Far from it. We will create new types of jobs in industries that we have not even conceived of yet. These jobs are likely to raise our standards of living, improve our quality of life, and unleash our creativity.

This may strike you as a utopian dream, but look at the industries that the mobile phone applications economy has spawned since the advent of the iPhone in 2007. An analysis by economist Michael Mandel showed that, as of December 2011, the mobile “app economy” employed 155,000 tech workers in the U.S. Another study by University of Maryland professors Il-Horn Hann, Siva Viswanathan and Byungwan Koh determined that the Facebook apps platform, which was also launched in May 2007, resulted in the direct employment of an estimated 53,434 third-party developers as of September 2011. These numbers don’t include the jobs created in related technical fields and other sectors of the economy: 311,000 in mobile apps and, on the lower end of study’s estimate range, 129,310 in Facebook apps.

Similarly, the new manufacturing will create new types of jobs. We can only guess what these jobs will be and what new industries will emerge, however. The one thing we can be sure about is that we will require a workforce with much different skills and education than what was required for the manufacturing jobs of yesteryear.

Carl Bass, President and CEO of Autodesk, which develops 3D design software for manufacturing, engineering, and entertainment, sees three key developments that will define the new manufacturing jobs: new materials, new processes, and complex integration of automated systems. (Full disclosure: Autodesk is a corporate founder of Singularity University, where I serve as vice president of academics and innovation in addition to my roles at Stanford, Duke, Emory, University of California-Berkeley and Harvard.)

Engineers and scientists are developing many new types of materials such as carbon nanotubes, ceramic-matrix nanocomposites (and their metal-matrix and polymer-matrix equivalents), and new carbon fibers—such as those which BMW is using in its new i3 Concept vehicle. These new materials enable designers to create products that are stronger, lighter, more energy efficient and more durable—opening up new applications that create new markets and displace traditional materials. The key, however, is the ability to apply these materials in high volume and with low costs. This is a challenge that requires innovations in material processing technologies and more highly skilled employees to manage the complex, new manufacturing processes. Prospective employees will need extensive training in order to work in this new environment.

The process of manufacturing is also changing. In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses to physically remove material and achieve a desired geometry. To achieve this, skilled machinists use sharp cutting tools to carve objects from metal wood, plastic, ceramic, and composites. In a new method called “additive manufacturing,” parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on 3D models—adding materials rather than subtracting them. This allows manufacturers to create complex objects without any sort of tools or fixtures. The process also doesn’t produce any waste material. 3D printing is only one example of “additive manufacturing.” Machinist jobs will need to evolve in order to deal with greater complexity. This new manufacturing environment will also need legions of 3D designers and people who can operate and maintain sophisticated computer-based equipment.

In today’s manufacturing plants, information systems are usually very hierarchical and depend on predetermined rules. As manufacturing systems become more complex, it will become much more difficult for individuals to spot small deviations and trends within the system. This means that factories, in a way, will need to become “self-aware” in order to support optimized systems. This self-awareness will cause transformations in the way people work. There will be far greater use of simulation to look at the manufacturing systems’ ability to react to changes, such as the introduction of a new product or factory rearrangement. The line between the virtual and physical world will also start to blur, forcing most manufacturing engineers to become more adept at dealing with virtual control systems simulation and other such technologies.

The good news is that this new manufacturing, if and when it’s realized, will allow American manufacturers to compete on a global scale again. But the U.S. will have to fundamentally re-engineer its education system if its citizens are to enjoy a rising standard of living. The current system was designed for a rural, agrarian population, not one that’s increasingly urban and competing globally. Tomorrow’s manufacturing workforce will have to be prepared to do new jobs that are less mechanical and, instead, require creativity and thought. There is no shortage of problems to solve, products to build, and technologies to develop. So, the more skilled workers the nation has to address these challenges, the better the employment and economic outlook will be.

This story originally appeared in the Washington Post. Top image: Rendering of a carbon nanotube by Geoff Hutchinson/Flickr.

Washington Post columnist Vivek Wadhwa is a visiting scholar at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, director of research for the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, and senior research associate for the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.

Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer that Apple heavily relies on for its products, may have tried to clean up its act before inspectors from the Fair Labor Association descended on its factories, according to a Hong Kong non-governmental organization dedicated to workers rights.

Foxconn allegedly pushed underage employees out of sight before the FLA inspection, Debby Sze Wan Chan, a project officer from Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), tells AppleInsider.

“All underage workers, between 16-17 years old, were not assigned any overtime work and some of them were even sent to other departments,” workers from the Foxconn factories reportedly told Chan.

Apple’s supplier code of conduct allows for factories to employ workers aged 16 to 18, but they’re also supposed to receive additional protections:

Preventing underage labor is only part of our efforts. We also monitor the treatment of workers who are old enough to work legally but are younger than 18. We don’t allow these workers to perform some types of work, even in cases where local laws allow it. Our standards also require factories to adhere to student labor laws and to ensure that schools and universities follow the laws as well, which is particularly important as factories increasingly turn to these institutions for student interns.

We’ve asked both Apple and the FLA for further comment and will update when we hear back.

Let’s be clear: SACOM isn’t alleging that Foxconn is hiding workers under 16, which would be a major child labor issue. Instead, the group says the supplier simply moved slightly older workers around to avoid scrutiny from the FLA. It makes sense for Foxconn to shape up in preparation for a highly publicized inspection, the real question is how these 16- to 18-year-old employees are treated once the spotlights disappear.

Last night’s ABC Nightline report gave us our best glimpse yet into Foxconn’s inner workings. The FLA, meanwhile, is still conducting its inspection of the factories. FLA president Auret van Heerden called Foxconn’s factories “first class” last week in an initial statement, but he also noted that there were many issues that needed to be solved.

Speaking about the overall atmosphere at the factories, Chan recounted one of her recent trips to AppleInsider, “The workers always tell us they resemble machines. Their regular day at Foxconn is waking up, queuing up for baths and work, work and go back to the dormitory and sleep. They do not have a social life and they are doing the same monotonous task in the factory for thousands of times a day. If they are not efficient enough or they make some mistakes, they will be yelled at by their supervisor or punished.”

VentureBeat is holding its second annual Mobile Summit this April 2-3 in Sausalito, Calif. The invitation-only event will debate the five key business and technology challenges facing the mobile industry today, and participants — 180 mobile executives, investors, and policymakers — will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. You can find out more at our Mobile Summit site.

What is it like inside a factory that makes Apple iPads? Tuesday night, an ABC Nightline special called “iFactory” gave us the first peak at actual factory working conditions and the people living on the assembly line.

Bill Weir, a reporter for ABC, traveled to Foxconn, a Chinese manufacturing company, soon after the media began taking a closer look at Apple’s assembly line practices. He went along with the Fair Labor Association, which Apple recently invited to audit its facilities in an effort to improve its conditions, or perhaps combat criticism. It also offered to post the audits to its website to keep transparency. Weir notes that Apple paid both to get into the FLA, and also for the audits it will perform, though an FLA employee assures that any “white-washing” will be obvious in the audit report. You can check out its “Supplier Responsibility at Apple” page here.

Foxconn is often criticized for its low pay and long hours. Each day, workers must step under protective nets, which adorn the sides of its dormitories due to suicides in the Spring of 2010. In January, dozens of Microsoft Xbox assembly line employees threatened to commit suicide if their working conditions were not improved. After another group of factory workers successfully jumped from the dormitory roofs to their deaths, Foxconn raised its starting salary up 25 cents, and began to offer counseling.

“We didn’t see a cluster effect until, I think, the fifth or the sixth one,” said Louis Woo, a Foxconn executive, on the idea that Foxconn may have a suicide problem.

The worker dormitories, where many of the suicide nets are set up, are an important part of how Foxconn works. When the commute is only minutes, no work time is wasted in travel. When many hours can be worked, more iPads can be shipped. To be fair, this makes good business sense, but the conditions aren’t anything to write home about.

Dormitories hold up to eight people at a time in metal beds. They are small, concrete, and not meant to be enjoyed. Two meals are kept to an hour each day, and workers must travel there in a single line. Mike Daisey described the cafeterias on This American Life as being able to hold 10,000 people, an amount hard to fathom. Work weeks are now capped at 60 hours, a long week in comparison to the average American electronic assembler’s work week of 42 hours, according to Weir.

Tim Cook recently said 84 percent of its surveyed workers were obeying the new cap.

Shifts at Foxconn are split into two, 12 hour periods. In a day, workers can pump out 300,000 iPad camera modules. An iPad is crafted in five days, with 300 hands touching the product.

Despite long hours, workers are more than lining up to grab a job at Foxconn — which pays $2 an hour — they’re crowding. The report shows a scene of over three thousand people corralled in front of the factory doors, hoping for the opportunity to be paid by Apple and send money home to families. Foxconn will hire 80 percent of the people who show up, the only requirement is a valid ID card.

The factory seems clean, anti-static gear accessible, and assembly lines efficient. It’s not conditions of dirt that keep some Foxconn employees disgruntled, however, it’s the wages.

The report introduced us to one woman who can afford to visit her family only once a month. She, like many, must leave homes to live at the factory. When asked if she would change anything about the experience, she expresses a need for higher wages, and perhaps benefits from her employer. She is not allowed to join a union. Unions similar to the ones that exist in the U.S. are illegal in China.

“We’re all here to work, naturally we want better pay and benefits,” she said, according to a translation.

Mounting conversations about cheap labor in China and elsewhere is bound to start pressuring companies to raise pay. Apple has already given its factory employees a raise, but after earnings reports that boast $13.06 billion in profit, the company may be pressured to invest more of its $90 billion in cash to its workers.

Would Foxconn want to pay its employees more if Apple supplied the means?

“Why not,” said Woo, speaking to Weir. “That would be good for the employees, and good for China, and good for us because we will have more stable workers who would love to work for our company because they would get paid a lot more than anyone else.”

VentureBeat executive editor Dylan Tweney offers another thought: if you’re upset by factories such as Foxconn’s, don’t just blame Apple, blame yourself. Because for all the gadgets we buy, we are in a way supporting the working conditions in which they were made.

If we can’t resist the gadgets we love, one woman scraping excess material from the 3000 iPad’s apple insignias she handles each shift has a request: “When [you] use it, please use it with care.”

Photos via ABC

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

ABC’s “Nightline” news program will air a special report Tuesday night that will give an “unprecedented” look into the Apple production lines at the troubled Foxconn plants in China. Labor conditions at the plants have drawn the ire of critics and Apple fans alike.

Apple, one of the most secretive companies in business today, has closely guarded the details about its production facilities that make its coveted iPhone and iPad mobile devices. After numerous negative reports about Foxconn, including several worker suicides, the dam broke in January with an extensive report by the New York Times that closely documented worker abuses. Apple responded by saying it would investigate abuses by the plants, and Foxconn agreed to raise worker wages by 16 to 25 percent. Foxconn also produces products for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and other major electronics companies.

The “Nightline” report will be one of the first times Apple and Foxconn have allowed any news organization tour the floor and get access with managers and workers. It will show off the conditions of half a dozen production lines of factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China.

“Nightline” anchor Bill Weir said that after years of denials, Apple finally gave him and ABC News the go-ahead to file a report from the Foxconn floor. He says that he doesn’t know exactly why he was picked but suggests it could be because:

• I’ve said nice things about their products on the air.
• ABC News is owned by the Disney Corporation and Disney CEO Bob Iger serves on the Apple Board of Directors
• The Steve Jobs Trust is Disney’s largest shareholder.
• They enjoy “Nightline.”

Apple said Weir would have full access to the plant but he would not be allowed to speak with CEO Tim Cook or long-time Apple VP Jony Ive about the facilities.

From ABC News’ early preview of the report, the most eye-opening part of the visit might very well be interviews with Foxconn workers. A look into the psyches of several workers shows how mind-numbing the job is: “I don’t think much about other things,” 26-year-old Liang Juan told Weir, “because the management is strict and we’re busy working and have no time to think about other things.”

ABC will air the “Nightline” report on Foxconn and Apple Tuesday night at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT. Will you stay up late to watch?

Foxconn factory video screenshot: ABC News

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Apple — which is now sitting pretty with $97.7 billion in cash after record-breaking earnings of $46.33 billion in the first quarter — has become addicted to the rapid-fire manufacturing capabilities made possible by low-wage Chinese workers, no matter the human cost.

The New York Times has begun documenting the current state of global manufacturing in its “iEconomy” series, which, not surprisingly, focuses on Apple as the latest manufacturing prodigy. Complaints about working conditions in Apple’s supplier factories aren’t new — Foxconn has been under the spotlight for years after a spat of worker suicides — but with Apple’s revenues on a seemingly non-stop tear, the fact that issues are still being reported is becoming increasingly troubling.

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” an anonymous Apple executive told the New York Times. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

The company has made gestures that it would keep tabs on its suppliers. A few weeks ago, Apple for the first time ever released a list of its suppliers, as well as the results of an internal audit report on conditions at supplier factories, which revealed ugly facts like child labor and slave labor conditions.

“I would like to totally eliminate every case of underage employment,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at the time. “As we go deeper into the supply chain, we found that age verification system isn’t sophisticated enough. This is something we feel very strongly about and we want to eliminate totally.”

Cook announced that Apple is joining the Fair Labor Association, a non-profit dedicated to improving working condition worldwide, and it would add transparency and independent oversight of Apple’s suppliers. Notably, Apple is the first technology company to be approved for membership in the FLA.

Joining the FLA is definitely a significant step for Apple, though it is just one in many gestures the company has made regarding labor abuses over the past few years. As one anonymous executive told the New York Times (emphasis ours):

If you see the same pattern of problems, year after year, that means the company’s ignoring the issue rather than solving it… Noncompliance is tolerated, as long as the suppliers promise to try harder next time. If we meant business, core violations would disappear.

As Apple continues to reap the rewards of its Chinese manufacturing workforce, that last point echoes loudly. Thus far, Apple has been a company concerned with churning out as many iPhones and iPads as humanly possible. That’s not too different from every other company manufacturing products, though Apple certainly has worked its suppliers to the bone with its lean manufacturing processes and need for perfection.

The New York Times mentions one fitting example, recounted by a former Apple executive.

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive told the NYT. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

While Apple is seeing the brunt of manufacturing complaints right now, that’s likely only because the company’s processes are so advanced. Eventually, all electronics companies will have to take a closer look at how their products are built, especially as devices like smartphones and tablets get cheaper.

The Taiwanese manufacturing company, which makes high-profile products for companies such as Apple and Hewlett-Packard, will use the robots to do simple tasks such as spraying, welding and assembling work. Those jobs are currently done by workers, said Terry Gou, founder and chairman of the company.

He made the announcement at a workers dance party on Friday night, and we’re pretty sure that was a damper on the festivities.

The robots will cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency, Gou said. Right now, the company has 10,000 robots and the number will hit 300,000 next year and 1 million in three years.

The plan seems both humane — as robots can do drudge work that humans don’t want to do or aren’t fit to do — and inhumane, as it will likely put a lot of people out of work.

Foxconn has become the world’s largest maker of computer components. It has been in the spotlight after a string of suicides at its giant Chinese factories. The company has 1.2 million employees, with about 1 million on the Chinese mainland.