Last month we told you about how Wintek, a main supplier for Apple and Nokia, among others, was poisoning its workers with n-hexane – a toxic chemical used in the screen manufacturing process that is actually banned (meaning that Wintek was using it in violation of the ban – they have since claimed to have ceased all use of n-hexane). Now in an annual report from Apple entitled “Supplier Responsibility: 2010 Progress Report”, Apple admits that not only have workers been poisoned by banned substances in the plants they use, but they have been using child labor, as well.

Wal-Mart, Gap, Nike – when you think of companies known to use labor where the work enviroment is dangerous to the workers, these are names that come to mind. But Apple? Nokia?? It’s true – the odds are good that the screen on one or more of your computers or cell phones was manufactured in a plant where workers are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals – where, in fact, workers have died due to exposure to chemicals like n-hexane. This week Chinese workers employed by Taiwanese screen manufacturer Wintek, in Wintek’s east China factory in Jiangsu province, staged a protest over, in part, their allegations that several workers have become paralyzed – and died – due to exposure to n-hexane, a toxic chemical that has been banned, but which Wintek is still using.