Is Apple Fixing Its Labor Problems?

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) said it cut off Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics as a component supplier last year after discovering as many as 74 underage labor violations at the circuit board manufacturer’s factories. Apple also discovered and reported an employment agency that was forging documents to allow people younger than 16 to work illegally at the supplier.

“Underage labor is a subject no company wants to be associated with, so as a result I don’t believe it gets the attention it deserves, and as a result it doesn’t get fixed like it should,” Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of operations, told Bloomberg.

Apple said it decided to name Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics and labor agency Shenzhen Quanshun Human Resources Developing Co. in order to highlight the problem. “Most companies, they either don’t report on it at all, or they say they look for it and found none, or they obscure the data in some way,” Williams added. “If they’re not finding it, they’re not looking hard enough.”