Apple chief Tim Cook on Tuesday defended the working conditions of the company's international suppliers, arguing that "we care about every worker."
"We believe that every worker has the right to a fair and safe work environment, free of discrimination where they can earn competitive wages and where they can voice their complaints freely," Cook said during the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference. "And Apple suppliers must live up to this to do business with Apple."
His comments come one day after Apple asked the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to conduct audits of Apple's final assembly suppliers, including Foxconn. The issue made headlines after a series of articles in the New York Times questioned whether Apple products are manufactured under safe and humane conditions. Concerns about Foxconn, however, have been going on much longer, with reports about worker suicides making news since at least 2010.
Cook, however, said Apple and its executives are "closely connected to the production process, and we understand working conditions at a very granular level." He pointed to his own experience working at a paper mill in Alabama and an aluminum plant in Virginia.
"No one in our industry is doing more" to improve working conditions than Apple, Cook insisted. "We are constantly auditing facilities, going deep into the supply chain, looking for problems, finding problems, and fixing problems, and we report everything because we believe that transparency is so very important in this area."
Using underage workers, for example, is "abhorrent," he said. "It's extremely rare in our supply chain but our top priority is to eliminate it totally. If we find a supplier that intentionally hires underage labor, it's a firing offense."
On safety, meanwhile, Apple does not let anyone "cut corners," Cook continued. "We focus on the details. If there's a fire extinguisher missing from the cafeteria, then that facility doesn't pass inspection until that fire extinguisher is in place."
Apple is now focusing on excessive overtime, Cook said. The company recently collected weekly data about half a million workers in its supply chain, and Apple saw 84 percent compliance. "Now, this is significantly improved from the past, but we can do better," Cook said.
The FLA, meanwhile, started its audit with the troubled Foxconn, but will also investigate Quanta and Pegatron plants. "The audit that they're conducting is probably the most detailed factory audit in the history of mass manufacturing," Cook said. "In scale, in scope, and in transparency."
In the wake of reports about poor working conditions, concerned Apple users launched petitions on the websites SumofUs.org and Change.org, calling for Apple to improve worker protections, increase transparency around the monitoring of its suppliers and make an "ethical" iPhone 5. Protestors recently converged on various Apple Stores, including the new one in Grand Central Terminal, to deliver the petitions, which garnered about 250,000 signatures.
Earlier this month, meanwhile, Taiwan-based Foxconn was hacked by a new group of so-called hacktivists and emails from its CEO were exposed.
For more, see A Foxconn Breakdown: Its Strengths, Strangeness, and Scrutiny as well as Foxconn Factories: How Bad Is It?