New Apple Supplier Responsibility report shows improvement

In wake of numerous reports on the poor working conditions at some of the factories in its supply chain, Apple erected a new section of its website entitled “Supplier Responsibility.”

The page includes a number of resources, including monthly reports showing the company’s progress. And according to the latest update, working conditions are already improving…

As noted by TUAW, Apple’s progress report for February shows that the compliance rate for its Fair Labor guidelines is now at 89%, up from 84% in January. It also notes that among 500,000 workers, the average work week for the month was 48 hours, which is also an improvement.

Exhaustive work weeks is just one of the many criticisms Apple has taken over the past few months regarding the working conditions in its supply chain factories. Earlier reports claimed that some employees were being forced to work between 60 and 80 hours a week to keep up with the company’s demands.

Even though this is just a minor win in the grand scheme of things, it’s nice to see that these problems are no longer getting swept under the rug. Now if only we could get the other companies to follow suit.