Alternet

Photo Credit: deejayres on Flickr

Anti-employee control frauds most commonly fall into four broad, but not mutually exclusive, categories – illegal work conditions due to violation of safety rules, violation of child labor laws, failure to pay employees’ wages and benefits, and frauds based on goods and loans provided by the employer to the employee that lock the employee into quasi-slavery.  Apple has just released a report on its suppliers that shows that anti-employee control fraud is the norm.  Remember, fraud is hidden and is often not discovered and Apple did not have an incentive to make an exhaustive investigation.  Apple calls its inquiries “audits” and it is apparent that most of its information comes from reviewing written and electronic records at its suppliers.  That is exceptionally revealing.  The suppliers know that they can defraud their employees with such impunity that they don’t even bother to get rid of records that prove their frauds.  Apple has resisted making public its suppliers and the report refused to identify which suppliers committed which violations – often for years despite repeated, false promises to end

their anti-employee control frauds. 

Two other facts are evident (but not reported).  First, Apple rarely terminates suppliers for defrauding their employees – even when the frauds endanger the lives and health of the workers and the community – and even where Apple knows that the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about these fraudulent and lethal practices.  Second, it appears unlikely in the extreme that Apple makes criminal referrals on its suppliers even when they commit anti-employee control frauds as a routine practice, even when the frauds endanger the worker’s and the public’s health, and even when the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about the frauds.  Apple’s report, therefore, understates substantially the actual incidence of fraud by the 156 suppliers (accounting for 97% of its payments to suppliers).