Apple Sweatshop Report?

[unixronin]

Apple's labor-practices report on its overseas suppliers has been released, and it's not very good.  Highlights include:

• Apple officially acknowledged that 137 workers at one of its Chinese suppliers "suffered adverse health effects" due to exposure to n-hexane, a cleaning agent regulated by the EPA as a potential carcinogen and which is also a long-term neurotoxin.
• Apple has a cap of a 60-hour, 6-day work week, "deemed excessive" in the US since the 1880s; yet only 32% of the Apple supplier facilities audited are in compliance with even that.  (Apple's not alone in that; the NYTimes has reported that companies including Wal-Mart, Disney and Dell are using suppliers that force their workers to work 16-hour days.)
• Ten of the audited Apple suppliers use child labor.
• One supplier, Foxconn, had 13 suicides or attempts in a five-month period; one suicide was a worker who had worked 286 hours the month before, including 112 hours of overtime (according to CNet, that's three times the legal overtime limit), and earned less than $300.

Apple reported $6 billion in profits for last year.  Apple reportedly has 4% of the world cell phone market, and 50% of its total profits.