Petition keeps the Apple controversy going

Who knew that mere newspaper articles about labor abuses at Apple's China-based contractors would continue to reverberate weeks later?  But "Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad," follow-up to "How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work" - both by New York Times reporters Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, have done just that.

In late January, 2012, the website SumOfUs.org, "a new world-wide movement for a better global economy," posted an online petition, "Apple: Make the iPhone 5 ethically."

As the petition notes, Apple is valued as the world's richest company with $100 billion in the bank. Yet, many of its factory workers pay with their health and in some cases, their lives.

"In many cases, people literally are dying while making Apple products. Reporters have documented cases of deadly explosions at iPad factories, and repeated instances of employees dying of exhaustion after working thirty to sixty hour shifts. In some of the factories Apple contracts with, so many employees have attempted suicide that management installed nets to prevent employees from dying while jumping off building ledges."

Apple is quite aware of these conditions and many in the company deplore them and occasionally make efforts to correct them, but without significant success. But, as the New York Times article said, quoting an anonymous Apple executive, "Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn't have another choice."

Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook took the extraordinary step of emailing every employee of Apple to tell them, "Apple cares about 'every worker' in its supply chain."

But, as Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs, responded,

"If Tim Cook is really offended by these allegations, why isn't he doing anything to fix the problems?"

Labor, however, isn't waiting for Apple executives to act. As Speed Matters reported earlier this week, Hong Kong labor groups have dredged penetrated the secrecy of Apple's suppliers to inform the world of widespread worker abuse. And, as blogger for China Labour Bulletin wrote:

"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."

It's clear that it will take both consumers and workers to improve conditions in the world's largest factories.

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

How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work (Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2012)

SumOfUs website

Apple: Make the iPhone 5 ethically (petition, Jan. 2012)

Tim Cook: Apple cares about 'every worker' in its supply chain (CNET, Jan 26, 2012)

Petition tells Apple: We want an 'ethical' iPhone 5 (CNET, Jan. 31, 2012)

The Hong Kong activists who’ve taken on Apple (Speed Matters, Jan. 30, 2012)

The way forward: pressuring Apple or building a workers' movement? (China Labour Bulletin, Jan. 27, 2012)