A le i ues Report on iPod Manufacturing

A le has released a report on the alleged abuses in the iPod factory that we reported a few weeks ago. A le sent a team of investigators to the factory and question and oke to a number of randomly picked workers. Here is what they concluded, in a nice billeted list:

• No evidence of child or forced labor was found
• Dormitories are offered to all workers (there are 200.000 workers in the complex though fewer than 15% of those work on iPods) free of charge, but living in them is optional (most works choose to live in the dorms)
• Most of the dorms met with A le's standards, however 3 recently converted dorms (they were factories before) did not, and the vendor has purchased land and is in the proce of building replacements
• All workers make at least the local minimum wage (which may seem low to us, but in the context it i 't overly low) with many employees making more. A le did find that reporting hours and the pay structure were too complex. The vendor is redoing both proce es.
• No forced overtime was found, however, the A le weekly limit of a 60 hour work week with one day off was exceeded 35% of the time with workers working more then 6 straight days 25% of the time. A le believes this to be exce ive and is working with the vendor to correct it.

I am very impre ed with the way A le is handling this. At the end of the report they point out that the firm of Verit%26eacute; has been hired to continue the monitoring of conditio at these factories. Good job, A le, and here's hoping that some people's lives will improve just a little bit because of all this.