On September 1, 2026, Tim Cook dinner will hand over management of Apple to John Ternus. He leaves behind one of the environment friendly manufacturing programs in client electronics, one he helped construct as operations chief from 1998.
In China, Cook dinner leaves a second, however associated, legacy: staff on Apple strains toiling 60 hours per week or extra, usually with no relaxation day and relying on additional time to cowl the fundamental price of dwelling.
Ternus must resolve learn how to deal with each of those realities.
At China Labor Watch, we simply accomplished a brand new investigation into Apple’s provide chains in China. Our conclusion will not be merely that Apple’s compliance system fails to forestall violations. Lots of the labor circumstances that the report recognized are baked into the manufacturing mannequin itself.
I as soon as requested a employee on an Apple line at a Foxconn manufacturing facility what he fabricated from the human rights requirements Western international locations speak about. He known as them Western propaganda. What taught him about America, he mentioned, was not requirements on paper however the machine-like tempo of Apple’s line and pay he was by no means certain would arrive.
Since 2006 we’ve investigated Apple’s suppliers in China, publishing 19 studies. I’ve come to consider blaming Apple alone could be unfair. Apple’s provide chain in China was constructed on a commerce. China wanted overseas capital, know-how, and jobs. In return, Western corporations obtained low-cost labor and pace constructed on lengthy additional time and excessive scheduling flexibility.
The Chinese language authorities, Apple, and the provider factories all bear duty for the circumstances staff face. However Apple has handled allegations of wrongdoing as a compliance downside, slightly than the output of its personal manufacturing mannequin.
Apple’s product cycles are quick, and launches ship order volumes sharply increased. Suppliers work on skinny margins and should ship huge volumes shortly. The element costs are set; gear prices are sunk. There is just one place left to make sure income: labor prices. Staff’ hours and earnings change into the buffer, absorbing the volatility Apple itself generates.
Apple’s reply has been to police this via a Provider Code of Conduct, audits, public reporting and employee coaching. Whereas these steps do have an effect, the general sample is obvious: particular person violations could also be corrected, however the identical issues return.
In 2019 we discovered withheld wages at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant. On the identical plant, greater than half the workforce was on dispatch contracts, far above the authorized cap of 10 p.c. Apple disputed most of our findings however acknowledged extreme use of dispatch staff. In 2022 hundreds on the identical plant clashed with police over pay promised at recruitment; Foxconn apologized, blaming a pc enter error. In 2025 we discovered dispatch staff nonetheless getting used above the authorized cap.
This August we discovered a full-time meeting employee at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant on a base wage of two,450 yuan a month, about $363, slightly above town’s authorized minimal of two,350 yuan. To succeed in 4,200 yuan he has to work 60-hour weeks, totaling roughly 87 hours of additional time a month, in opposition to a statutory ceiling of 36.
Elevating his base wage by 1,750 yuan, about $260 a month, would let him earn the earnings he wants on a authorized schedule. Even when all 200,000 staff employed at peak working occasions acquired that improve for a full 12 months, the price could be roughly $620 million – about half of 1 p.c of Apple’s $112 billion in web earnings within the 12 months to September.
Clearly, Apple can afford to pay extra. The discrepancy, then, factors to a deeper challenge: labor circumstances will not be given the identical precedence as output, pace, and revenue margin.
Have a look at how Apple manages suppliers. Yield charges and supply deadlines are tracked exactly. Lacking them can price a provider its orders. A labor violation, in contrast, will simply produce one other audit. Foxconn went via the 2010 suicides and has gone via one labor dispute after one other since. To this present day it stays considered one of Apple’s most vital companions.
Suppliers know precisely which metrics are most vital to Apple.
Apple may have set an enforceable wage ground and made labor circumstances matter as a lot as high quality and supply. It has not.
China has modified, economically and politically. If Apple desires to maintain counting on China as its major manufacturing base, sustaining the outdated mannequin now comes at a better value in each Beijing and Washington. Apple has been prepared to pay that value. It has by no means paid a comparable value to the individuals who construct its telephones.
As if the struggling of hundreds of staff wasn’t sufficient, there are different prices as effectively. When the US preaches labor rights whereas its most emblematic firm leaves Chinese language staff depending on unlawful additional time to stay, the contradiction erodes the very labor and human rights requirements it promotes.
Cook dinner proved Apple can management how an iPhone is made. He by no means confirmed that Apple is prepared to take duty for the welfare of the individuals who make these telephones. For 20 years Apple’s priorities have been constant: manufacturing first, duty second.
On September 1, Ternus inherits the manufacturing system Cook dinner helped create – and the unpaid debt to the employees who energy that system. Whether or not the debt is paid is not going to be recorded within the subsequent Provider Duty Report, however it is going to present up in how the employee on the road describes America to everybody he is aware of.