Apple orders probe into Foxconn staff conditions
PC giant asks workers' rights group to inspect working conditions at Chinese production facilities
Apple has ordered an inspection of Foxconn's Chinese production facilities after 150 staff threatened to commit suicide at one of its plants last month.
The PC giant has asked the Fair Labour Association (FLA), a non-profit workers' rights group, to inspect conditions at Foxconn Technology Group's factories in Shenzhen and Chengdu.
The group's manufacturing facilities are used by several vendors, including Apple, Acer and HP, to make their products. Conditions at the factories have come under scrutiny in recent years following a spate of staff suicides.
Last month, 150 workers at Foxconn's facilities in Wuhan, southern China, threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of one of its factories.
According to a Bloomberg report, the protest was prompted by plans to transfer some of the plant's workers to a different production line and was resolved within a day.
In a statement, Apple said the FLA's inspections began on Monday in Shenzhen and will include assessments of the staff's working and living conditions.
The FLA will also conduct interviews with "thousands" of Foxconn staff about their working hours, management, health and safety, and compensation.
The association's initial findings are expected to be published early next month and will be followed by similar investigations at Foxconn's Quanta and Pegatron facilities.
In the same statement, Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, said the inspections were part of the vendor's commitment to ensuring staff have a "safe and fair work environment".
"The inspections now under way are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports," he added.
Apple claims to have carried out numerous inspections at Foxconn in the past, as part of its annual audits of every final assembly factory in its supply chain.