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Apple COO Jeff Williams says company takes heat on child labor because it goes out looking for it

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In a radio interview on the syndicated show Conversations on Health Care, Apple COO Jeff Williams said that the reason Apple has come under attack for the use of child labor in its supply chain is that the company actively goes out looking for it. Other companies, he said, simply keep their heads down.

No company wants to talk about child labor. They don’t want to be associated with that. We shine a light on it. We go out and search for cases where an underage worker is found in a factory somewhere and then we take drastic actions with the supplier and the labor groups to try and make a change.

Then we report it publicly every year. We take a lot of heat for that. But we think the only way to make change is to go hit it head-on and talk about it.

Apple has come under fire over the years when underage workers were found in the company’s supply chain, and Williams has spoken before about Apple’s unusual stance on these issues …

Back in 2014, when a Panorama documentary found that child labor was used in Indonesian tin mines, whose output feeds into the Apple supply chain, Williams said that it was more moral to work for change than simply to walk away.

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.

Apple noted in its annual Supplier Responsibility Progress Report that it tries to work with suppliers to ensure compliance with the company’s standards, and drops those which refuse to cooperate. Business Insider noted that Apple’s most recent report involved carrying out a total of 633 audits covering 1.6 million workers, with 16 cases of child labor detected.

Williams said that making a positive difference in the world was what most motivated his team, and he pointed to the power of HealthKit and ResearchKit to make a huge difference to healthcare in developing countries.

That’s one of the things that most interests us here at Apple. We’re big believers in the democratization potential of this. The injustice of fantastic healthcare available in some parts of the world, and others suffering needlessly.

He gave the example of autism, which often goes undiagnosed until it is too late. He said that very early diagnosis allows interventions that affect the development of the brain, and that there are apps that can facilitate this.

In Africa, there are 55 people in all of Africa that are trained specialists in autism […] for a population of over a billion. […] Having an impact in people’s lives in terms of IQ and social skills by intervening early in autism, that’s the kind of thing that makes us get up in the morning.

Photo: Reuters

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Comments

  1. I applaud their work in supply chain governance, but the Apple Watch and HealthKit stuff is in lala land. How is a $500+ luxury watch going to help detect autism in a toddler? Or for the general populace of African nations? Might be time to call PC Principal here.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 8 years ago

      One iPhone in a health center could diagnose a lot of kids.

      • I suppose if you want to leverage the idea that Apple’s app store and sensors have allowed third parties to create software for portable lower-priced computational devices they weren’t previously creating… But the same software can honestly be created for any decent mobile hardware and that’s been true for many years now.

  2. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    What is Apple talking about when it comes to underage child labor? What age are they really finding when they do? No where am I finding the ages they are looking for and what ages they have found. Are they concerned if the find someone under 18? 17? 16?

    I don’t know what the problem is if they have someone under 18 at one of these plants if that’s the only way it keeps that person from being homeless. There is a lot of poverty in China, this country as well. What’s more humane? Giving them a job they want and are wiling to do or putting them on the streets?

    IfI was under 18 and didn’t have a family or my family was broke and I was the only one capable of working, I’d work. This is what happens when you live in poverty. I’ve heard interviews of people that grew up during the Great Depression and many times they kids, when they were young kids would have to find jobs because they able to find someone to give them jobs their parents wouldn’t or couldn’t do.

    • Ben Lovejoy - 8 years ago

      Under 16

      • Jake Becker - 8 years ago

        I was wondering this as well, a little dubious about “underage” VS “child”. Under 16 makes sense. Rich has a great point otherwise.

    • Matisyahu Gardiner - 8 years ago

      Reminds me the interviews of Foxconn workers – many of them aren’t just supporting themselves but also supporting their family hence you see the big migrations between the country and city on Chinese New Year as many travel back home to be with their family. Many of the employees want to work long hours (well, have to because of duty to their family) to support their family. As I’ve continued to say in the past, what are these Apple haters solution? unfortunately for many it is easier for the haters to come out and talk about what Apple should do but never talk about the unintended consequences that come off of what they demand – every choice has a price.

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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