Stop Me Before I Vote Again

bustling battler
and white knight
in the war on corporate fraud
billy black
gives 40 wacks
to father S's sacred cow
APPLE

billy:

"Apple has just released a report on its suppliers that shows that anti-employee fraud is the norm....an NYT article on the report notes that it was bad publicity in the U.S.
that finally forced Apple to make greater disclosures about its suppliers’ frauds."

cited nyt article

"The calls for Apple to disclose suppliers became particularly acute after a series of deaths and accidents in recent years. In the last two years at firms supplying services to Apple, 137 employees were seriously injured after cleaning iPad screens with n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause nerve damage and paralysis; over a dozen workers have committed suicide or fell or jumped from buildings in a manner that suggests a suicide attempt; and in two separate blasts caused by dust from polishing iPad cases, four were killed and 77 injured.”

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ya ya i know ...but for now lets NOT
get into the meta layer of corporate fraud
ie
reporting on supplier fraudwithout a real intention to stamp it out

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continuing right along :

anti-employee fraud ?

" illegal work conditions due to violation of safety rules,
violation of child labor laws,
failure to pay employees’ wages and benefits,
goods and loans provided by the employer to the employee that lock the employee into quasi-slavery."

" Apple calls its inquiries “audits” and it is apparent that most of its information comes from reviewing written and electronic records at its suppliers. That is exceptionally revealing. The suppliers know that they can defraud their employees with such impunity that they don’t even bother to get rid of records that prove their frauds."

" Apple has resisted making public its suppliers and the report refused to identify which suppliers committed which violations – often for years despite repeated, false promises to end their anti-employee control frauds. "

" Apple rarely terminates suppliers for defrauding their employees – even when the frauds endanger the lives and health of the workers and the community – and even where Apple knows that the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about these fraudulent and lethal practices."

".. unlikely in the extreme that Apple makes criminal referrals on its suppliers "

“...audits revealed that 93 supplier facilities had records indicating that more than half of their workers exceed a 60-hour weekly working limit.

Apple said 108 facilities did not pay proper overtime as required by law.

In 15 facilities, Apple found foreign contract workers who had paid excessive recruitment fees to labor agencies. "

".. though Apple said it mandated changes at those suppliers, and some facilities showed improvements, in aggregate, many types of lapses remained at levels that have persisted for years.”

there u have it sports fans

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lesson for today ....billy's watch words:
.

“ Dishonest dealings tend to drive honest dealings out of the market. The cost of dishonesty, therefore, lies not only in the amount by which the purchaser is cheated; the cost also must include the loss incurred from driving legitimate business out of existence.”

here is the black bloc sweeping condemnation you all live by as the way of the world:

"..... Companies like Apple and its counterparts create this criminogenic environment by selecting least-cost – criminal – suppliers who offer components at prices that honest firms cannot match. Effectively, they hang out a sign – only the fraudulent need apply to be suppliers. But the sign is, of course, invisible and cannot be introduced in court so Apple and its peers also get deniability. They are shocked, shocked that its suppliers are frauds that cheat their employees and put them and the public’s health at risk in order to make a few extra yuan or dong for the senior officers.

Fraudulent suppliers have compelling incentives to locate in nations and regions in which they can commit fraud with impunity. Nations that are corrupt, have weak rule of law, weak or non-existent unions, poor protections for workers, a reserve army of the impoverished, and have few resources devoted to prosecuting elite white-collar crime provide an ideal criminogenic environment for firms engaged in anti-employee fraud. The ubiquitous nature of anti-employee fraud
in many nations explains why U.S. industries have been so eager to “outsource” U.S. jobs to fraud-friendly nations. "

"....an important technical point. The wages reported in the most fraud-friendly nations are substantially overstated because workers work far longer hours without receiving the compensation to which they are entitled. Their hourly rate is much lower than reported, which means that the wage gap between U.S. and the most fraud-friendly nations is significantly greater than reported.
U.S. firms that have foreign suppliers in these nations are well aware of this data bias and make their outsourcing decisions based on the real (much larger) wage gap. "

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"Foreign Anti-employee Control Fraud harms U.S. Workers"

indeed indeed indeed comrade black

full article :
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2012/01/anti-employee-control-fraud.html