This piece is written by Li Qiang, founder and executive director of China Labor Watch, and a human rights advocate with over 30 years of experience investigating global supply chains.
Archived
[As Tim Cook handed over the reigns at Apple's CEO on 1st September], he leaves a second, but related, legacy: workers on Apple lines toiling 60 hours a week or more, often without a rest day and depending on overtime to cover the basic cost of living.
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At China Labor Watch, we just completed a new investigation into Apple’s supply chains in China. Our conclusion is not simply that Apple’s compliance system fails to prevent violations. Many of the labor conditions that the report identified are baked into the production model itself.
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Since 2006 we have investigated Apple’s suppliers in China, publishing 19 reports. I have come to believe blaming Apple alone would be unfair. Apple’s supply chain in China was built on a trade. China needed foreign capital, technology, and jobs. In return, Western firms got cheap labor and speed built on long overtime and extreme scheduling flexibility.
The Chinese government, Apple, and the supplier factories all bear responsibility for the conditions workers face. But Apple has treated allegations of wrongdoing as a compliance problem, rather than the output of its own production model.
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In 2019 we [the NGO China Labour Watch] found withheld wages at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant. At the same plant, more than half the workforce was on dispatch contracts, far above the legal cap of 10 percent. Apple disputed most of our findings but acknowledged excessive use of dispatch workers. In 2022 thousands at the same plant clashed with police over pay promised at recruitment; Foxconn apologized, blaming a computer input error. In 2025 we found dispatch workers still being used above the legal cap.
This August we [the NGO China Labour Watch] found a full-time assembly worker at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant on a base wage of 2,450 yuan a month, about $363, a little above the city’s legal minimum of 2,350 yuan. To reach 4,200 yuan he has to work 60-hour weeks, totaling roughly 87 hours of overtime a month, against a statutory ceiling of 36.
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As an addition, there is a documentary from 2021:
Profiting form Authoritarianism: How Tim Cook Surrendered Apple to the Chinese Government
Apple is making billions of dollars integrating into countries with authoritarian regimes. Even if it means helping to cement the power of the ruling elite or enabling egregious abuse of human rights. And there doesn’t seem to be anything Apple wouldn’t do for the sake of growth and expansion. Apple cites compliance with local laws as the reason for giving human rights abuse a go. But the actions of the most valuable company in the world go far beyond compliance with the law. - [Alternative Invidious link]
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