Dec. 15, 2020 Catholic News Agency After legislation aiming to counter forced labor in the Chinese province of Xinjiang saw success in the U.S. House of Representatives, significant corporate lobbying has targeted the legislation in the Senate. Critics have characterized the lobbying as an effort to weaken the bill, while several major companies have argued their policies already seek to remove forced labor from their supply chains. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed the House on Sept. 22 by a vote of 406-3. The legislation would treat all goods imported from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the far west as being created with forced labor, unless certified otherwise by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It would also require disclosures from businesses that engage with Chinese companies and would authorize sanctions on anyone determined to be responsible for labor trafficking of Uyghurs.
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FROM TOI PRINT EDITION
World’s most important place: How tiny Taiwan came to be the epicentre of the global battle for tech supremacy December 15, 2020, 8:39 PM IST
Ruchir Sharma is the author of the upcoming ‘10 Rules of Successful Nations’
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union threatened to spark conflict in nations all over the world, and battles over control of many different natural and industrial resources. The new Cold War, between the United States and China, is increasingly focussed on access to one industry in one place: Computer chips made in Taiwan.
Opinion | Pound for Pound, Taiwan Is the Most Important Place in the World nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
AdobeStock/Ivan Kruk
In 2014, China enacted a labor law meant to protect workers’ rights requiring that no more than 10% of a factory’s workforce to be temporary workers, according to The Information, a news website. However, for years, Apple took no major action against its suppliers for violating the law out of concerns it would create costs, drain resources and delay product launches.
New data and insight from former Apple employees suggest that Apple’s strategy for supply chain management makes it difficult for its three biggest contract manufacturers Foxconn Technology, Quanta Computer and Pegatron to remain compliant with labor restrictions. Last year, Apple admitted that Foxconn broke the law at its massive iPhone factory in Zhengzhou, which employs as many as 300,000 workers.
ExtremeTech
Report: Apple Ignored its Partners’ Repeated Violations of Chinese Labor Laws By Joel Hruska on December 10, 2020 at 7:30 am
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There have been two recent reports that paint Apple in a damning light when it comes to caring about the health and well-being of the workers that build its products. One concerns the long-term hiring practices of Apple’s factory partners (partly driven by Apple’s own demands), while the other touches on China’s abuse of the million or so Uyghurs currently held in internment camps.