Trade unions miffed at Apple

THE INTERNATIONAL Confederation of Free Trade Unions has slammed Apple's whitewash of conditions at Foxconn's Chinese plant.

Apple said that there was not much wrong at Foxconn, although it did work its employees a bit too hard and a few more hours than it needed.

But the International ICFTU's director of human and trade union rights, Janek Kuczkiewicz, said that he had 'serious reservations' about the report.

He pointed out that Apple executives interviewed just 100 people out of the estimated 30,000 iPod workers. No one knows if the interviews were held in private or if staff were told to accent the positive to the nice foreigners from across the waters.

Apple had ignored the fact that there were other labour standards by which an operation had to be judged. These included freedom from discrimination, freedom of association and freedom to bargain collectively.

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