苹果首席执行官蒂姆•库克（timcook）回应了一份调查报告，该报告披露了该公司一家中国供应商存在虐待劳工的行为，称他对这些指控“深感冒犯”。在《每日电讯报》获得的发给英国员工的一封内部电子邮件中，苹果公司高级运营副总裁杰夫·威廉姆斯（Jeff Williams）写道，他和库克都“对苹果公司将违背对我们供应链员工的承诺或以任何方式误导我们客户的说法深感不快”

这封邮件是对本周英国广播公司（BBC）发布的一部纪录片的回应，在该纪录片中，在上海一家Pegatron工厂工作的卧底记者报道说，那里的工人长时间不休息，生活条件狭窄。威廉姆斯在邮件中说，这部长达一小时的纪录片“暗示苹果没有改善工作条件。他接着说，公司向BBC提供了改善整个供应链工作条件的“事实和观点”，但“他们的节目显然没有提供这些信息”

“让我告诉你，没有什么比这更离题了。”

这家工厂为苹果公司生产ipad和iphone，苹果在中国拥有约1400名员工。英国广播公司报道说，那里的雇员被迫轮班工作，时间长达16小时，一些人在请假被拒绝后连续工作了18天。一名记者被迫与其他11名工人共用一间小宿舍。

近年来，苹果和其他科技公司因涉嫌在供应链中滥用劳动力而受到越来越多的审查，其中最著名的是富士康旗下的工厂。去年，一家劳工权利监督机构指控Pegatron在其工厂违反安全和环境规定，此外，还有类似于BBC本周报道的虐待劳工指控。

作为回应，苹果加大了对供应链的监控和监管力度，其年度供应商责任报告对此进行了详细说明。威廉姆斯在内部邮件中指出，公司已经跟踪了100多万名供应链员工的工作时间，93%的员工遵守了规定的每周工作60小时的限制，不过他承认还有改进的空间。”我们还可以做得更好。我们会的，”他写道。

“我们还可以做得更好。我们会的。”

英国广播公司的调查还报道说，印尼一个非法矿山的锡可能正在进入苹果的供应链，一些矿山在不安全的工作条件下雇用童工。威廉姆斯在邮件中辩称，苹果公司公开承认“来自印度尼西亚的锡最终进入了我们的产品，其中一些锡很可能来自非法矿山”，该公司已经访问了该地区，“对那里发生的事情感到震惊”。他补充说，苹果公司正在积极努力追究锡供应商的责任，在与其他科技公司建立了印尼锡工作组之后。

威廉姆斯写道：“苹果有两个选择：我们可以确保所有供应商都从印度尼西亚以外的冶炼厂购买锡，这可能是我们最容易做的事情，当然也会保护我们免受批评。”但这将是一条懒惰和懦弱的道路，因为苹果在那里开采的锡中，有一小部分被苹果消耗，因此它对改善印尼工人或环境没有任何帮助。我们选择了第二条道路，即保持参与，努力推动集体解决办法。”

威廉姆斯的完整电子邮件如下。

UK Team,

As you know, Apple is dedicated to the advancement of human rights and equality around the world. We are honest about the challenges we face and we work hard to make sure that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Last night, the BBC’s Panorama program called those values into question. Like many of you, Tim and I were deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way.

I’d like to give you facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their program.

Panorama showed some of the shocking conditi*** around tin mining in Indonesia. Apple has publicly stated that tin from Indonesia ends up in our products, and some of that tin likely comes from illegal mines. Here are the facts:

Tens of thousands of artis**** miners are selling tin through many middlemen to the **elters who supply to component suppliers who sell to the world. The government is not addressing the issue, and there is widespread corruption in the undeveloped supply chain. Our team visited the same parts of Indonesia visited by the BBC, and of course we are appalled by what’s going on there.

Apple has two choices: We could make sure all of our suppliers buy tin from **elters outside of Indonesia, which would probably be the easiest thing for us to do and would certainly shield us from critici**. But it would be the lazy and cowardly path, because it would do nothing to improve the situation for Indonesian workers or the environment since Apple c***umes a tiny fraction of the tin mined there. We chose the second path, which is to stay engaged and try to drive a collective solution.

We spearheaded the creation of an Indonesian Tin Working Group with other technology companies. Apple is pushing to find and implement a system that holds **elters accountable so we can influence artis**** mining in Indonesia. It could be an approach such as "bagging and tagging" legally mined material, which has been successful over time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are looking to drive similar results in Indonesia, which is the right thing to do.

Panorama also made claims about our commitment to working conditi*** in our factories. We know of no other company doing as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditi***, to discover and investigate problems, to fix and follow through when issues arise, and to provide transparency into the operati*** of our suppliers.

I want you to know that more than 1400 of your Apple coworkers are stationed in China to manage our manufacturing operati***. They are in the factories c***tantly — talented engineers and managers who are also compassionate people, trained to speak up when they see safety risks or mistreatment. We also have a team of experts dedicated solely to driving compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct across our vast supply chain.

In 2014 alone, our Supplier Resp***ibility team completed 630 comprehensive, in-person audits deep into our supply chain. These audits include face-to-face interviews with workers, away from their managers, in their native language. Sometimes critics point to the discovery of problems as evidence that the process isn’t working. The reality is that we find violati*** in every audit we have ever performed, no matter how sophisticated the company we're auditing. We find problems, we drive improvement, and then we raise the bar.

Panorama’s report implied that Apple isn’t improving working conditi***. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are just a few examples:

Several years ago, the vast majority of workers in our supply chain worked in excess of 60 hours, and 70+ hour workweeks were typical. After years of slow progress and industry excuses, Apple decided to attack the problem by tracking the weekly hours of over one million workers, driving corrective acti*** with our suppliers and publishing the results on our website monthly — something no other company had ever done. It takes substantial effort, and we have to weed out false reporting, but it's working. This year, our suppliers have achieved an average of 93% compliance with our 60-hour limit. We can still do better. And we will.

Our auditors were the first to identify and crack down on a ring of unscrupulous labor brokers who were holding workers’ passports and forcing them to pay exorbitant fees. To date, we have helped workers recoup $20 million in excessive payments like these.

We’ve gone far beyond auditing and corrective acti*** by creating educational programs for workers in the same facilities where they make our products. More than 750,000 people have taken advantage of these college-level courses and enrichment programs, and the feedback we get from students is inspiring.

I will not dive into every issue raised by Panorama in this note, but you can rest assured that we take all allegati*** seriously, and we investigate every claim. We know there are a lot of issues out there, and our work is never done. We will not rest until every person in our supply chain is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

If you’d like to learn more about our Supplier Resp***ibility program, I encourage you and our customers to visit our website at apple.com/supplierresp***ibility.

Thanks for your time and your support.

Jeff