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成協議，一起解決生產蘋果熱銷產品工廠的工資以及工作條件違規問題。

富士康為蘋果生產從iPhone手機到iPad平板電腦等產品，它表示將把包括加班在內的工時降至每周49小時，同時工人工資保持現有水平。為了填補縮減的工時，富士康將再雇傭數萬名員工。

該公司還說，將再建宿舍、食堂來容納更多的員工。

該協議顯示出中國工人在要求漲薪方面權利越來越大。

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

蘋果公司同意獨立機構——公平勞動協會對其進行調查。該協會公布了對富士康三家工廠和35000余名工人的調查結果，表示發現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。

公平勞動協會的調查還發現，在生產高峰期，三個工廠的工人平均每周工作超過60個小時。