Apple Inc, whose supplier Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) was hit by a series of employee suicides last year, said a quick response by the Taiwanese assembler helped prevent further deaths.
Apple commissioned a review by a team of suicide-prevention experts after the worker deaths, and in August presented its findings to senior executives from both companies, including Foxconn founder and chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), according to Apple’s annual Supplier Responsibility report.
“The team commended Foxconn for taking quick action,” Apple wrote. “Foxconn had worked openly with many outside experts and government officials in reacting to the crisis. Most important, the investigation found that Foxconn’s response had definitely saved lives.”
Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs on June 2 denied Foxconn was a sweatshop, saying his company was “all over” the supplier to deal with the deaths.
The US firm’s chief operating officer, Tim Cook, visited Foxconn’s Shenzhen, China, facility in June last year as part of an effort to stop worker suicides, the company said in the report.
Cook and his group met with Gou to discuss measures Foxconn was putting in place to prevent more deaths, Apple said in the report on Monday.
Most workers who took their own lives did so by leaping from company-owned high-rise dormitories.
Cook’s team, which included suicide-prevention specialists, made recommendations that Foxconn followed, including hiring psychological counselors, opening a 24-hour care center and installing nets in factories, Apple said.
Cook is now handling day-to-day operations at Apple, maker of the iPhone and Macintosh personal computers, while Jobs is on medical leave, the company said on Jan. 17.
Foxconn has more than 1 million employees who churn out products for customers including Apple, Dell Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Sony Corp.
In its report, Apple said its team interviewed workers and their managers in person and inspected Foxconn’s work and living areas.
Apple’s supplier responsibility report also said the company audited 127 supplier sites last year, 97 of them for the first time. More than 40 percent of the companies inspected last year said Apple was the first company to have audited them for social responsibility, the report said.
In addition to China, Apple has since 2007 conducted audits in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the US.
Apple said it had addressed violations of its supplier code of conduct, including excessive fees charged to workers by recruitment agencies, use of underage workers and exposure to harmful chemicals.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort