Apple has been complicit in its suppliers’ violations of Chinese labor laws, according to a report from the information. Suppliers have periodically filled their factories with temporary workers or’dispatch labor’.

The law limiting the use of dispatch labor came into effect in 2014. Apple conducted a survey of its suppliers in China to determine how many already complied.

Three former members of Apple’s’supplier responsibility team’ have said that the company’took no major action against its suppliers for violating the temp-worker labor law’. Apple says it applies its supplier code of conduct policies equally across its supply chain.

A Quanta factory producing Apple watches hired 5,000 temporary workers to bring its workforce to 18,000. That’s around 27 percent temporary workers, above the 10 percent limit set by the law.

In 2019, Apple admitted to at least a portion of this dispatch labor problem in its dealings with Foxconn. Foxconn had exceeded the 10 percent limit, despite previously agreeing multiple times to stop. Just last month another supplier, Pegatron, violated student labor laws and falsified its records to cover it up.

Restrictions on temporary labor are an issue that all large tech companies manufacturing in China have likely been dealing with. Apple’s desire to’surprise and delight’ has also worsened the problem.