The Hong Kong activists who?ve taken on Apple

Last week, a signal New York Times article on working conditions at Apple's Chinese suppliers released a flood of responses and questions. The media attention has been so powerful and sustained that new Apple CEO Tim Cook felt compelled to release an email letter to Apple employees saying, "We care about every worker in our supply chain."

But perhaps the most interesting responses are from the people who generated the information that enabled The New York Times to accurately report on conditions in heavily guarded factories. These are the labor activists based in Hong Kong who visit the People's Republic, collect evidence and assist in worker defense and organizing.

China Labour Bulletin is an NGO with "extensive links and wide-ranging co-operative programs with labour groups, law firms and academics throughout China, as well as with the international labour movement." According to U.S.-based, longtime international labor activist and blogger Paul Garver, CLB is a highly respected group which works with the huge International Trade Union Confederation. CLB has regularly reported on strikes, mining disasters, working conditions, labor law and more.

They're joined by the younger and more activist Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) who have been waging a campaign against Apple and other electronics outsourcers called No More iSlave. SACOM "unveiled massive poisoning cases at United Win, a subsidiary of Wintek Corporation and an Apple Computers contractor in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province."

In addition to reporting, CLB is providing keen analysis of the furor over Apple's subcontractors. CLB Development Director and blogger William Nee asked:

"First, how likely is it that Apple will gain the will power to overcome its internal dilemma, and wholeheartedly support an improvement in workers' rights at the expense of its other interests? Second, even if Apple were to put extreme pressure on suppliers to improve their conditions, would suppliers in turn comply and improve conditions?"

Nee wonders "Does Apple have the power to improve working conditions?" and "how much leverage Apple has over some suppliers... if not, what incentive does Foxconn have to improve standards if they know full well that Apple's entire business model relies upon them?"

While cautioning about relying too much on moral suasion in the consuming countries, Nee points out that there is hope in China where "a nascent workers' movement is starting to develop, grassroots workers rights groups are becoming more numerous, and strikes and collective actions are becoming more organized."

In any case, to truly follow what Apple and other manufacturers are doing in China, the place for news is from the feisty activists in Hong Kong.

In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad (Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, Jan. 26, 2012)

Tim Cook responds to claims of factory worker mistreatment: "We care about every worker in our supply chain" (9TO5Mac.com, Jan. 26, 2012)

China Labour Bulletin website

Talking Union website

International Trade Union Confederation

Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM)

No More iSlave website