A new report into the labour practices of the world’s biggest tech brands, including HTC, Kogan, GoPro and Canon, has revealed widespread shortfalls in their efforts to end worker exploitation.

The alarming findings, revealed in a report by Baptist World Aid Australia, have been verified by an ethical supply chain management expert, who has travelled to see the “horrible conditions” workers toiled in.

The expert, Kate Nicholl, told The New Daily that while the coffee, cosmetics, tea and clothing industries had high-profile movements pushing for more ethical supply chains, the tech industry lagged behind in worker rights awareness.

• The secret, hidden cost of your smartphone
• The 15 gadgets that will improve your life in 2016
• Apple infuriates iPhone users again with ‘Error 53’

“It will take a massive disaster in the tech industry for people to realise the problems there,” Ms Nicholl said.

“Worker exploitation and poor conditions are an emerging issue in the tech industry.

Click on the owl to read the full list of companies and how they rated     

“It exists, but the awareness is only beginning to get traction.

“It needs to be more widely known like cocoa, clothing and coffee industries so the companied are forced to act.”

She said tech consumers “put the blinkers on”, because products had become so essential in our lives.

Ms Nicholl visited the site of the 2013 Rana Plaza clothing factory collapse in Bangladesh, where 1100 workers died.

The tech industry needs a Fair Trade Coffee-like system says an expert. Photo: Getty

When she arrived with a camera crew she was inundated with stories of the horrible disaster, which she said could happen in the tech industry.

“The army made her [a woman Ms Nicholl met] sign a disclaimer to say the army had warned her it was unsafe to go in and save survivors,” she said.

“Then, the army medical staff taught her how to amputate limbs. So she went in there and was amputating the limbs of living people who were trapped underneath ruins.”

Some staggering findings were revealed in the Baptist World Aid report.

No company received a score of “A”, meaning they all failed to demonstrate a satisfactory level of workers’ rights, according to the report’s authors.

One of them said improving worker rights should not necessarily translate into price increases, given the huge margins many tech companies enjoy.

“These are some of the most high-value products on the market at times,” advocacy manager at Baptist World Aid Australia Gershon Nimbalker told The New Daily.

“While there might be increased costs [in treating workers better] we don’t think it would be substantial.”

The report also revealed that none of the companies surveyed “provided a guarantee they paid workers the living wage”, except for telecommunication giant Nokia.

‘Stopping slavery comes down to this’

Mr Nimbalker said that there were four areas involved in coming up with each company’s rating.

These measures were: Policy – a code for suppliers; Traceability – Knowing the supply chain from start to finish; Monitor – checking and assessing the supply chain; Worker rights – demonstrate measures to improve worker wellbeing (CBA, grievance, pay).

In order to come up with the valuation, each company was asked 61 questions addressing these topics.

According to Mr Nimbalker, pressure for companies to stop slavery and poor working conditions need to come from government and consumers.

He said companies had responded very well since the same survey was released in 2015, but that there was still work to be done.

Click on each logo to read about the worst-rated brands: