MediaFile

Apple has identified 17 “core” violations in an audit of suppliers that scrutinized 102 of the facilities where iPods, iPhones and Mac computers are produced.

Apple said its annual supplier responsibility assessment uncovered eight violations involving “excessive recruitment fees,” three with underage workers, three relating to hazardous waste disposal by noncertified vendors, and three of “falsified records.”

For example, it said three facilities were found to have hired 15-year-old workers in countries where the minimum employment age is 16.

In addition, the company found foreign workers in eight facilities had been overcharged for agency recruitment fees, and said it required the supplier in each case to reimburse any fees over the legal limit. Apple said workers have been reimbursed $2.2 million in recruitment fee overcharges over the past two years.

Although it doesn’t identify which suppliers were responsible for the major violations or where they occurred, in its report Apple said such actions land a facility on probation, usually for a year, and management is  is required to “remedy the situation immediately and implement management systems that ensure sustained compliance.”

The Screen Actors Guild ran an ad in the local paper on Wednesday seeking better labor terms. We’re not talking about the L.A. Times here, but rather the Idaho Mountain Express, straight out of Sun Valley, Idaho, where Hollywood’s elite are bumping shoulders at the annual Allen & Co conference.

SAG was dealt a blow late Tuesday when another smaller Hollywood union ratified a new prime-time TV contract.  SAG’s contract talks stalemated last week over some of the same issues that led to a 14-week screenwriters’ strike that paralyzed Hollywood and centered on disagreements over how union talent should be paid for work created for the Internet.

The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists won final approval despite an unusual all-out campaign by SAG to vote down the AFTRA accord. A “no” vote would have given SAG more leverage to negotiate a more favorable settlement with studios.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The countdown is underway in Hollywood, with just hours to go before the contract covering 120,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild expires. What happens next is anybody’s guess, though it would be some time before actors walked off the job.

Indeed, SAG president Alan Rosenberg said in a statement that it had “taken no steps to initiate a strike authorization vote” and that any speculation was “simply a distraction.”

The Hollywood Reporter writes that several options are left for the guild and the studios. “They could negotiate a contract extension, which could be by day, week or month, and keep talking; the studios could lock out the actors; or SAG could seek a strike-authorization vote from its membership, which will be at least a two-week process as the negotiating committee must vote on whether to bring a strike.”