Please join our protest at the Apple Store, 235 Regent Street, London W1. For more info please call Karen Johnson 07804 891082.

Apple admits to breaking labour laws in China: fight for free trade unions!

Apple - the enormous multinational responsible for producing Mac computers and i-Pods - has admitted to breaking Chinese employment law by forcing its workers in China to complete 80 extra hours of work per month.

China is ruled by an authoritarian dictatorship and maintains one of the most oppressive sets of labour legislation in the world, in which independent trade unions are illegal and bosses are entitled to force their workers to work 36 extra hours per month. Any company operating in China - even within the law - necessarily subjects its workers to massive exploitation. For a corporation to admit breaking those laws implies hyper-exploitation on a barbaric scale.

The conduct of the corporation in China is also in direct violation of its own code of conduct, which forbids workplace discrimination, harsh treatment or harassment, involuntary labour and child labour. It limits the working week to less than 60 hours, including overtime, and there should be at least one day off a week. It mandates vacation time and leave periods, as well as enshrining employees' rights to form and join independent unions. Apple's blatant flouting of its own code exposes the hypocrisy of its bosses and shows that, without free trade unions in place to enforce them, "codes of conduct" and "corporate social responsibility contracts" aren't worth the paper they're written on.

No Sweat campaigns against exploitation and for a living wage and full trade union rights for all workers, everywhere. Join our campaign to take a bite out of multinational sweatshop employers like Apple and the oppressive, anti-worker governments like China's that give them free reign to repress and exploit.