No company follows Apple's expanded China factory audits

By Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows, Bloomberg News

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple's rivals aren't rushing to emulate the iPhone maker's decision to subject supplier factories to audits by a labor group.

Instead, they're sticking to internal checks that may leave room for violations — and negative public-relations fallout.

Apple said Feb. 14 the Fair Labor Association (FLA) had started independent audits amid criticism of conditions at its plants in China.

Companies including Microsoft, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics rely on their own evaluations, based in part on guidelines from the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), which they say are sufficient to prevent abuses.

Though Apple's decision to join FLA may not root out all instances of labor abuse, the EICC's member companies may open themselves to even harsher criticism.

While the EICC sets standards for ethics, worker safety and labor practices, it doesn't require members to disclose findings and it lacks enforcement powers.

The result is a disjointed system of self-imposed regulations that fail to hold companies accountable when abuses arise, according to labor advocates and technology executives.

"They are absolutely toothless," said Tom Fallon, chief executive of Infinera, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based maker of telecommunications equipment that hasn't joined the EICC because Fallon says the group isn't effective. "I don't think they do meaningful work."

Wendy Dittmer, a spokeswoman for EICC, said she doesn't know of any instance of a factory losing business, permanently or temporarily, for failing to live up to the group's code of conduct. The EICC doesn't require companies to share those details about their relations with business partners, she said.

Technology companies are under scrutiny for working conditions at Foxconn Technology Group and other manufacturers' Chinese plants, where the world's best-selling gadgets are assembled.

Workers making Apple products log 11 hours of work a day, six days a week, while production speeds are so high that wNike news