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Apple CEO Tim Cook and SVP Jeff Williams 'Deeply Offended' by BBC Documentary

Apple CEO Tim Cook and SVP Jeff Williams 'Deeply Offended' by BBC Documentary

Posted December 19, 2014 at 4:56pm by iClarified
In a letter sent to U.K. Apple staff, SVP of Operations Jeff Williams said he and CEO Tim Cook were deeply offended by allegations that Apple mistreats workers.

BBC's Pegatron program aired a documentary entitled, "Apple's Broken Promises" which went undercover to investigate working conditions at Pegatron factories and other suppliers. You can watch the full video here.

Williams writes that the two executives were "deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way".


Williams' full letter to staff can be read below...

[via Telegraph]

-----
UK Team,

As you know, Apple is dedicated to the advancement of human rights and equality around the world. We are honest about the challenges we face and we work hard to make sure that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.


Last night, the BBC’s Panorama program called those values into question. Like many of you, Tim and I were deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way.

I’d like to give you facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their program.

Panorama showed some of the shocking conditions around tin mining in Indonesia. Apple has publicly stated that tin from Indonesia ends up in our products, and some of that tin likely comes from illegal mines. Here are the facts:

Tens of thousands of artisanal miners are selling tin through many middlemen to the smelters who supply to component suppliers who sell to the world. The government is not addressing the issue, and there is widespread corruption in the undeveloped supply chain. Our team visited the same parts of Indonesia visited by the BBC, and of course we are appalled by what’s going on there.

Apple has two choices: We could make sure all of our suppliers buy tin from smelters outside of Indonesia, which would probably be the easiest thing for us to do and would certainly shield us from criticism. But it would be the lazy and cowardly path, because it would do nothing to improve the situation for Indonesian workers or the environment since Apple consumes a tiny fraction of the tin mined there. We chose the second path, which is to stay engaged and try to drive a collective solution.

We spearheaded the creation of an Indonesian Tin Working Group with other technology companies. Apple is pushing to find and implement a system that holds smelters accountable so we can influence artisanal mining in Indonesia. It could be an approach such as “bagging and tagging” legally mined material, which has been successful over time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are looking to drive similar results in Indonesia, which is the right thing to do.

Panorama also made claims about our commitment to working conditions in our factories. We know of no other company doing as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions, to discover and investigate problems, to fix and follow through when issues arise, and to provide transparency into the operations of our suppliers.

I want you to know that more than 1400 of your Apple coworkers are stationed in China to manage our manufacturing operations. They are in the factories constantly — talented engineers and managers who are also compassionate people, trained to speak up when they see safety risks or mistreatment. We also have a team of experts dedicated solely to driving compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct across our vast supply chain.

In 2014 alone, our Supplier Responsibility team completed 630 comprehensive, in-person audits deep into our supply chain. These audits include face-to-face interviews with workers, away from their managers, in their native language. Sometimes critics point to the discovery of problems as evidence that the process isn’t working. The reality is that we find violations in every audit we have ever performed, no matter how sophisticated the company we're auditing. We find problems, we drive improvement, and then we raise the bar.

Panorama’s report implied that Apple isn’t improving working conditions. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are just a few examples:

Several years ago, the vast majority of workers in our supply chain worked in excess of 60 hours, and 70+ hour workweeks were typical. After years of slow progress and industry excuses, Apple decided to attack the problem by tracking the weekly hours of over one million workers, driving corrective actions with our suppliers and publishing the results on our website monthly — something no other company had ever done. It takes substantial effort, and we have to weed out false reporting, but it's working. This year, our suppliers have achieved an average of 93% compliance with our 60-hour limit. We can still do better. And we will.

Our auditors were the first to identify and crack down on a ring of unscrupulous labor brokers who were holding workers’ passports and forcing them to pay exorbitant fees. To date, we have helped workers recoup $20 million in excessive payments like these.

We’ve gone far beyond auditing and corrective actions by creating educational programs for workers in the same facilities where they make our products. More than 750,000 people have taken advantage of these college-level courses and enrichment programs, and the feedback we get from students is inspiring.

I will not dive into every issue raised by Panorama in this note, but you can rest assured that we take all allegations seriously, and we investigate every claim. We know there are a lot of issues out there, and our work is never done. We will not rest until every person in our supply chain is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

If you’d like to learn more about our Supplier Responsibility program, I encourage you and our customers to visit our website at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.

Thanks for your time and your support.

Jeff
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Apple CEO Tim Cook and SVP Jeff Williams 'Deeply Offended' by BBC Documentary
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Comments (18)
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Lara Croft123
Lara Croft123 - July 10, 2016 at 5:36pm
I don't need my money back (about $123,000(, BUT I WOULD REALLY LIKE ALL THE LONG-RUNNING BUGS FIXED!
 pilot
pilot - December 20, 2014 at 10:37am
I suck and that offends me. Wanna see?
Vang
Vang - December 20, 2014 at 3:26am
You know you've made it when everyone wants to destroy you. Good job Apple. Just bought a Mac air. Awesome machine. That was the wife's. Time for mines in a few days.
AppleGuy299
AppleGuy299 - December 20, 2014 at 4:49am
It's called a MacBook Air.
Lara Croft123
Lara Croft123 - July 10, 2016 at 5:35pm
"mines?"
bob53366
bob53366 - December 20, 2014 at 12:32am
it's one sided story, how about showing Samsung, LG, and Sony factories too. How about some more comments from Apple you can't give one side of the story to see the big picture.
AppleGuy299
AppleGuy299 - December 20, 2014 at 4:50am
True. They only go for the most popular/ one which has the most to loose.
Noname111
Noname111 - December 19, 2014 at 9:10pm
lies lies lies. He is telling people what they want to hear. APPLE BE GONE, Parrisete of civilization
Ren
Ren - December 19, 2014 at 6:03pm
donating your money to support gay rights was genius!
gamerscul9870
gamerscul9870 - December 19, 2014 at 5:59pm
If I'd work there, I would do it all day.
What
What - December 19, 2014 at 5:50pm
@pilot Apple pays more taxes than any other outsourced tech company.
Ren
Ren - December 19, 2014 at 5:56pm
where did you get your data you probably living under the apple tree?
Stevey J
Stevey J - December 19, 2014 at 5:08pm
What about Google, Starbucks etc. they all avoid taxes!
Ren
Ren - December 19, 2014 at 5:58pm
Yes they are! That is why I stop supporting this company here in UK!
Stevey J
Stevey J - December 19, 2014 at 5:06pm
I bet Samsung put them (BBC) up to this, probably even funded the program!
toby95
toby95 - December 19, 2014 at 5:14pm
That would be very stupid of Samsung to do. Samsung profits with every Apple Product sold. Just look at whats inside an iPhone
Tim Cook
Tim Cook - December 22, 2014 at 3:35am
You can comment when you can properly construct sentences.
Ren
Ren - December 19, 2014 at 5:04pm
Apple Tax Cheater Offended? Wow!
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