January 25th, 2013

Apple’s 2013 Supplier Responsibility Report Includes 72% Bump In Audits For 2012, 97% Increase In Training

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Apple has released its 2013 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report, and it features a number of updates from last year, including Apple’s decision to join the Fair Labor Association (a notable first), and conduct audits of its suppliers in tandem with that outside watchdog organization. The results seem to be a tightening of Apple’s code of conduct for suppliers all around, in terms of… → Read More

August 14th, 2012

Backed By Andreessen, Virtual Workforce MobileWorks Completes 1M Tasks For Startups In 1st Year

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MobileWorks launched last summer with a simple, yet big mission: Build a viable alternative for Amazon Mechanical Turk and in so doing create a motivated, happy and accurate virtual workforce. To be the anti-Turk, the startup set out with a novel approach (and a social mission) — to pay workers fair wages and create a collaborative online work environment in which microwork would become less… → Read More

January 19th, 2012

Foxconn Chief Equates Employees To Animals

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While I suspect there’s a lot lost in translation here,Foxconn chairman Terry Gou made a wildly distasteful joke this week at the Taipei Zoo, saying (according to WantChinaTimes): “Hon Hai (Foxconn) has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache.”

The comments came during a presentation at the zoo where the… → Read More