Apple In The Spotlight Again For Labor Violations

Apple AAPL is once again being accused of treating their workers unfairly.

The Chinese human rights group, China Labor Watch, says Pegatron is committing safety, environmental and pay violations, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Apple responded by saying: “Apple is committed to providing safe and fair working conditions throughout our supply chain.” The company also said it has conducted several audits of the factory and will look into these new allegations.

This is not the first time Apple has had problems with their suppliers. In March of 2012, Apple came under scrutiny for use of their supplier Foxconn after a similar human rights group reported violations.

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Apple has been fading Foxconn out of its supply chain since it became public that the hardware producer had their employees work excessive hours in inhuman conditions. There have been several suicides related to Foxconn working conditions.

Shares of Apple fell $9.22, or 1.5 percent the day after the Foxconn report came out. It will be interesting to see how shares move this trading session.

On one hand, this is not the first time that Apple has been accused of using suppliers with labor violations, so shares will not move as much. On the other, this shows Apple either cannot or doesn’t care enough to keep their suppliers operating ‘fairly’, causing shares to fall further.

Investors should note this accusation is less extreme than the Foxconn reports.

Shares of Apple closed at $440.99 last week, and are trending slightly downward in the pre-market.