Apple Inc said on Thursday it had agreed to work with partner Foxconn to tackle wage and working condition violations at the factories that produce its popular products, Reuters reported.

Foxconn -- which produces Apple devices ranging from the iPhone to the iPad -- said it would reduce working hours to 49 hours per week, including overtime, while keeping its workers total compensation at its current level. To compensate for the reduction in hours, Foxconn will hire tens of thousands of additional workers.

It also said it would build more housing and canteens to accommodate that influx.

The agreement is a sign of the increasing power of Chinese workers to command higher wages.

The measures come in response to one of the largest investigations ever conducted of a U.S. company's operations abroad.

Apple had agreed to the probe by the independent Fair Labor Association. The association, in disclosing its findings from a survey of three Foxconn plants and over 35,000 workers, said it had unearthed multiple violations of labor law, including extreme hours and unpaid overtime.

The FLA audit had found that during peak production times, workers in the three factories put in more than 60 hours per week on average.

(China.org.cn March 31, 2012)

路透社報道，蘋果公司周四宣布已和合作公司富士康達(dá)成協(xié)議，一起解決生產(chǎn)蘋果熱銷產(chǎn)品工廠的工資以及工作條件違規(guī)問題。

富士康為蘋果生產(chǎn)從iPhone手機(jī)到iPad平板電腦等產(chǎn)品，它表示將把包括加班在內(nèi)的工時降至每周49小時，同時工人工資保持現(xiàn)有水平。為了填補(bǔ)縮減的工時，富士康將再雇傭數(shù)萬名員工。

該公司還說，將再建宿舍、食堂來容納更多的員工。

該協(xié)議顯示出中國工人在要求漲薪方面權(quán)利越來越大。

這些舉措是對一項調(diào)查做出的回應(yīng)，該調(diào)查也是美國公司海外工廠受到的最大調(diào)查之一。

蘋果公司同意獨立機(jī)構(gòu)——公平勞動協(xié)會對其進(jìn)行調(diào)查。該協(xié)會公布了對富士康三家工廠和35000余名工人的調(diào)查結(jié)果，表示發(fā)現(xiàn)了諸多違反勞動法的行為，包括超長勞動時間，加班沒有加班費。

公平勞動協(xié)會的調(diào)查還發(fā)現(xiàn)，在生產(chǎn)高峰期，三個工廠的工人平均每周工作超過60個小時。