Apple has been accused of ignoring its suppliers’ violations of Chinese labour laws.

According to The Verge which cited a report from digital media company The Information (paywall), Apple's suppliers have periodically filled their factories with temporary workers or “dispatch workers”, violating a Chinese labour law requiring no more than 10% of a factory’s workers be temporary employees.

The law limiting the use of dispatch labour came into effect in 2014, and that year Apple conducted a survey of its suppliers in China to determine how many already complied. The company found that among 362 factories, “nearly half were over the quota for temporary workers,” according to a presentation The Information reviewed and in 2016, labour data showed that the figure had not changed much.

Three former members of Apple’s “supplier responsibility team” said that the company “took no major action against its suppliers for violating the temp-worker labour law out of concerns it would create costs, drain resources and delay product launches.”

Data collected from 2018 showed that the quota for dispatched workers was exceeded and in 2019 China Labour Watch, a US-based Chinese workers’ rights organisation, issued a report accusing Apple and its manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Co Ltd of breaching numerous Chinese labour laws, including one barring temporary staff from exceeding 10% of the total workforce.