Early Praise in Inspection at Foxconn Brings Doubt

Auret van Heerden, president of the Fair Labor Association which was hired by Apple to inspect its suppliers’ factories, has begun praising the Chinese plants of Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier, just days after his group began inspections there. van Heerden’s apparent praise of conditions at Foxconn came despite previous reports of employees committing suicide, dying in factory explosions and complaining of sometimes working more than 70 hours a week.

The Fair Labor Association’s No. 2 official, Jorge Perez-Lopez, said, “The work we’re doing at Foxconn is not about first impressions or whether something has a paint job or not.” “The proof,” Perez-Lopez continued, “will be in the pie, will be in the eating. It will be when the report comes out.” “Generally, in a labor rights investigation, the findings come after the evidence is gathered, not the other way around,” said Scott Nova, executive director of the Workers Rights Consortium, a university-backed group that monitors apparel factories worldwide. “I’m amazed that the F.L.A. would give one of the most notoriously abusive factories in the world a clean bill of health — based, it appears, on nothing more than a guided tour provided by the owner,” he added. “If the F.L.A. wants to convince people that it can somehow conduct an impartial investigation of Apple, despite being funded by Apple, this is not a good way to start.”