Apple's Sweatshop

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Apple have opened the doors to their Chinese 'sweatshop' factories where employees are paid as little as £1.12 an hour. Many of the staff perform monotonous tasks like wiping down screens or shaving aluminium from the edge of the Apple logo for ten tedious hours at a time. Now the conditions inside the factory in Shenzhen - where 18 employees have killed themselves - can be seen, after ABC TV network were given exclusive access. The broadcaster revealed that the entry-level salary of just £180 per month is so low that it would take more than two months salary to pay for the cheapest iPad. Even if the lowest earners do the maximum available overtime of 80 hours per month, they still do not earn enough to pay tax. Previous reports have claimed that some of the workers were doing 24 hours at a time, while others were forced to stand for their entire shifts. While the Nightline documentary knocks down those suggestions, it does show the suicide nets covering the whole site, in place to stop over-worked and stressed employees leaping to their deaths. Managers asked for the nets to be put up two years ago after nine workers committed suicide in the space of three months.

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