A labor group has begun investigatingworking conditions at the Chinese factorieswhere many Apple products are made.Apple officials ordered the investigationafter The New York Times newspaperdescribed poor working conditions at the factories.The Foxconn Technology Group owns the manufacturing centersin Shenzhen, Chengdu and Zhengzhou.Angela Cornell is a professorat the Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York.She says many issues were raised last yearafter a number of suicides at the Foxconn factories.One issue is the number of hoursthat employees are required to work.Other concerns are pay, living conditionsand even reports of violence against workers.The New York Times reported that employeessometimes worked seven days a week.The newspaper said some stood so longthat they had trouble walking.Widespread criticism of Applefollowed publication of the report.Mark Shields organized a campaign callingfor better working conditions.MARK SHIELDS: "Workers lives are really hardand really severe, and there's terrible storiesabout people losing the use of their handsbecause of horrible repetitive motion injuries,and suicide rates that are so highthat they have got to hang nets off the sides of the buildingsto prevent workers from killing themselves."Professor Cornell says the conditionsat the Foxconn factories had to have been really bad.ANGELA CORNELL: "Just imagine how dire the working conditionswould have had to be for those workers to sacrifice their lives."Professor Cornell says even Apple's own reportsnoted issues at some of its factories.These included involuntary labor and underage labor.ANGELA CORNELL: "These are important issues.The involuntary laborer(s) are indentured migrant workers.And that is a crucially important issue.I mean that's basically slave labor."More than two hundred thousand peoplehave joined Mark Shields' campaignfor better working conditions.The American admits he loves his Apple products.But, he says, he wants themto be made without human suffering.The company announced last weekit had asked the Fair Labor Associationto investigate the conditions at its Foxconn factories.The FLA was established in nineteen ninety-nineto investigate working conditions around the world.Apple joined the not-for-profit group earlier this year.Last Friday, the Times reported that the president of the FLAhas begun praising the factories.But the group's second-in-command suggested delaying judgmentuntil a report on the investigation is finished.Also on Friday, Foxconn saidit was raising the pay of its workers in China.It was the company's third pay raise since twenty-ten.And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report,written by June Simms.