Nowadays, so many people are using Apple's products. As a grand business, Apple Suppliers must be responsible to their great amount of workers.
From the article "In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad", I can identify three key issues that Apple suppliers have: disregard for workers' health and safety, improper dispose of hazardous waste and falsified records, and violation of code of conduct and laws. These issues exert bad impacts on Apple's reputation. It makes people think that Apple is an overly profit-driven company that does not care about professional responsibilities, because the above three issues are all due to cost minimization.
Apple's actions and reputation with its suppliers also affect other stakeholders besides employees. For the CEO and the members of the Board of Directors of Apple, they face great pressure and reprehension from the public. Good explanation is necessary. For shareholders, they will gradually lose faith in Apple and start selling out their shares. Then the market value of Apple will drop.
According to Apple CEO Tim Cook's public comments, Apple values benefits of its workers a great deal. He emphasized a lot on how Apple is going to keep improving itself in caring about workers despite the industrial accidents that have already occurred. He promised that Apple would put effort on improving working conditions, eliminating underage labor, decreasing excessive overtime and increasing transparency in auditing and reports. These commitments were made strongly and firmly.
From Apple's Supplier Responsibility Page, three key values that Apple demonstrates in its supplier policies can be found. First, labor and human rights. One example for this would be that Apple "prohibit[s] the use of pregnancy tests and medical tests as a condition of employment." Second, worker health and safety. For instance, "workers there now have access