In a recent announcement, Apple revealed that the independent watchdog group, the Fair Labor Association (FLA), has commenced the inspection and on-site audits of the factories owned by the bigwig manufacturer Foxconn in China.

According to the information shared by Apple, the FLA inspection of Foxconn's China plants will include interviews of the company's employees about working and living conditions, including health and safety, salaries, working hours and communication with the managing authorities.

The inspection marks the first monitoring of the company in response to widespread public outcry against the deplorable conditions for workers involved in the production process of Apple's popular devices.

The Foxconn inspection is essentially an upshot of the several media reports, including a series of reports by The New York Times in the past few weeks, which have been highlighting serious and fatal safety violations at the Foxconn plants, as well as excessive overtime hours put in by the workers and the employment of underage employees.

About the currently-in-progress Foxconn inspection by the FLA, the Taipei-based company's spokesman Louis Woo - who is the chairman of Foxconn's retail unit - said that four facilities in Shenzhen, Chengdu and Zhengzhou were being inspected by more than 10 representatives of the FLA.

Further revealing that the association's representatives are also surveying workers at Foxconn's Longhua and Guanlan factories, Woo said that the assessments will likely continue over the next two weeks.