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Apple Suppliers in China Under Fire Again Over Labor Abuses
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2467282,00.asp
By Stephanie Mlot
September 4, 2014 01:00pm EST
Apple is once again under fire from labor rights groups, which claim that Chinese factories that provide iPad and MacBook parts are in violation of the country's labor laws. An investigation spearheaded by U.S.-based China Labor Watch and Green America found a hazardous working environment at Catcher Technology Co. in Taiwan, according to a joint report.
Most notably, the findings suggest that Catcher workers receive no actual safety training, despite signed confirmations to the contrary, and often suffer from skin and eye irritation while using toxic chemicals without protective equipment.
Fire exits and windows are typically locked, while some safety routes are too narrow, meaning a fire or explosion in the factory would leave many workers trapped inside the building.
It's not just the employees who are subject to dangerous situations: According to the report, Catcher pours industrial waste, including cutting oils and metal scraps, into the sewage system that connects with a nearby river.
Some Crapple "quality" products I myself have purchased in the past:
1) an Apple Titanium Powerbook G4 laptop, with a DVD burner drive that successfully burned a circular inprint on any disc which was simply inserted into it, CD or DVD, blank or already written, thus destroying the disc, rendering it permanently unreadable on any machine. Apple produced millions of these defective drives.
2) an Apple iPhone 3GS, with an ios operating system which Apple purposefully made non-updatable past a certain point, thus making it impossible to download and use most apps and forcing the hapless customer to purchase a new version iPhone.
