courtesy Creative Commons

Hundreds of supply factories in China require employees as young as 15 to work more than 60 hours a week, or more than six days a week, according to The Daily Beast. Often times, these factories have deadly conditions.

Still, fewer than 15 suppliers have been terminated since 2007.

The New York Times reports:

In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple and its high-technology peers — as well as dozens of other American industries — have achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history.

However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants, worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious — sometimes deadly — safety problems.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

Apple executives have said that the company has taken significant steps in improving factories.

Apple reported $13 billion in profits Wednesday, the day before news of the unsafe factory conditions were released.

In addition to long hours, dozens of workers have been injured and some even killed in explosions and other accidents at Apple plants, reports CBS News. In a seven-month span last year alone there were two explosions at iPad factories in China, one of them killed four and injured 77, according to the New York Times.

Reach executive producer Hannah Madans here.