Apple is investigating a newspaper report that staff in some of its Chinese iPod factories work long hours for low pay and in "slave" conditions.
The article in the Mail on Sunday alleged that workers received as little as £27 a month, doing 15-hour shifts making the iconic mp3 player.
Employees at the factory lived in dormitories housing 100 people and outsiders were banned, the paper said.
Apple said it did not tolerate its supplier code of conduct being broken.
Outsourced
In a statement the firm said: "Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible."
The company added it was "currently investigating the allegations regarding working conditions in the iPod manufacturing plant in China".
The report said that at a different factory, in Suzhou near Shanghai, which makes the iPod shuffle, workers were paid £54 per month - but that half of that went on accommodation and food within the factory complex.
According to the Mail on Sunday, women rather than men were employed on the production line.
Apple is one of thousands of companies that has outsourced manufacturing to China where labour costs are low.
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
| 
