Apple has allegedly known about the abuse of Foxconn workers in China for a long time without doing anything to change it, according to a new report from the New York Times.

We've previously reported on the numerous difficulties that surround working for Foxconn -- employees threaten mass suicide over pay, the CEO takes his management cues from zookeepers, and there have been problems in the past regarding its hiring underage employees.

An anonymous Apple executive told the Times, "We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on. Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

Another executive on the fact that underage worker violations keep occurring: "If you see the same pattern of problems, year after year, that means the company’s ignoring the issue rather than solving it. Noncompliance is tolerated, as long as the suppliers promise to try harder next time. If we meant business, core violations would disappear."

Apple is supposedly working on it, however. Another one of the Times's sources said, "We’re trying really hard to make things better but most people would still be really disturbed if they saw where their iPhone comes from."