Apple Supplier Pegatron Promises To Investigate BBC Claims Of Poor Employee Treatment

By Laura Northrup December 22, 2014

While Apple was the company that drew headlines after a report on electronics factories in China, the company that was one of the subjects of a recent BBC documentary was Pegatron, one of Apple’s partners that does the actual assembly of Apple’s iPhones. Apple countered that its own audits show that its partners’ workers aren’t mistreated, but Pegatron filed a statement with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that it plans to investigate the BBC’s claims.

Pegatron is based in Taiwan, and traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company claims that “employee safety is their top priority,” according to a translation by Digitimes, but Pegatron isn’t denying the BBC report. The company plans to investigate the documentary’s claims and make any necessary changes.

An undercover reporter wearing a camera caught overworked employees napping at their stations, confiscation of ID cards, underage workers, and bad conditions in employee dorms. Workers claimed that they worked too many hours with no days off. All of these things go against Apple’s own policies for its manufacturing partners, but Apple counters that the company’s own comments on conditions at this Pegatron factory and in its supply chain overall were not presented during the documentary.