Apple requires suppliers to provide a workplace that’s both safe and healthy.
Our suppliers must adopt strict safety standards and provide workers with safety training. And we’re working with our suppliers to roll out employee assistance programs to improve worker well-being.
Making working conditions safer.
As we work closely with suppliers to introduce new manufacturing techniques and processes, we also require them to keep the workplace safe and hazard-free. They must provide proper protective gear, guardrails, safety harnesses, and other safety equipment, as well as comprehensive, up-to-date training for workers. When we discover a problem — either during an audit or through one of Apple’s many onsite employees — we require immediate correction, and we look for ways to expand safety procedures and practices in all similar facilities. This way, we go beyond industry standards to improve health and safety across our supply chain.
New standards in safety.
Our commitment to socially responsible manufacturing leads us to continually raise our standards, especially when we learn of an issue not covered by standard industry practice or our Supplier Code of Conduct. In 2011, for example, we began to look even more deeply into manufacturing processes at our suppliers. We enlisted internationally recognized experts, who worked with us to identify specific manufacturing processes that we could improve to make supplier facilities safer.
Working with combustible dust.
We were deeply saddened by events at two of our suppliers in 2011. An explosion at Foxconn’s Chengdu factory tragically took the lives of four employees and injured 18 others. An explosion at the Ri-Teng (a subsidiary of Pegatron) factory in Shanghai injured 59.
Immediately after each of these incidents, Apple reached out to the foremost experts in process safety and assembled teams to investigate the circumstances of each explosion. These teams made recommendations about how to prevent future accidents. While the causes of these two incidents — as well as many of the corrective actions taken afterward — were different, both explosions involved combustible dust. Many materials, including ones normally considered noncombustible, can burn rapidly when small particles are suspended in air in the right concentration and ignited. In both of the 2011 incidents, aluminum particles provided fuel for a blast.
Working closely with external experts, Apple audited all suppliers handling aluminum dust and put stronger precautionary measures in place before restarting production. We have established new requirements for handling combustible dust throughout our supply chain, including:
- Specific ventilation requirements with regular testing of airflow velocity
- Comprehensive inspections of ductwork to identify aluminum dust deposits
- Banning the use of high-pressure compressed air for cleaning to lower the possibility of dust clouds forming
- Requiring that all vacuums be rated explosive proof to prevent ignition
- Ensuring that type-D fire extinguishers are available to handle metal fires
Employee assistance programs.
In 2010, Apple worked with our supplier Foxconn to launch an employee assistance program (EAP) at its facility in Shenzhen, China. Workers there now have access to free psychological counseling, including a 24-hour hotline, to get advice on their personal and professional concerns. Over the past year, we began working with three more suppliers to establish EAPs at their largest facilities, customized to meet the needs of their workers.
In addition to counseling services, the EAPs help build support networks and arrange social activities for workers. These programs are designed by mental health experts who specialize in issues that are common among workers in China.
