Apple -- bad employers

[miriam_e]

Do you use Apple products or are considering buying one of their pretty-looking machines? What you don't see is the ugliness beneath. For a couple of years workers at Apple factories in China have been trying to get Apple to end their awful work practices. Recently an online petition was launched to get Apple customers to pressure the company to become responsible corporate citizens.

In January Apple announced a record-breaking 44.1% profit for last quarter and are sitting on $100 billion in cash. But the success of Apple comes at a terrible cost - shocking details have emerged about the conditions under which iPhones and iPads are manufactured, with a rising count of employees dying from suicide, exhaustion and explosions.

Please read further about that and sign the petition here:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/workers-rights/apple/sign-the-petition

Now some courageous people who worked at a factory manufacturing iPhone touch-screens and who ended up with permanent nerve damage from the toxic chemicals have written a letter imploring people to pressure Apple to fix this. Here is the letter translated from Chinese:

You don't know us but you have seen our work. Until recently, we worked long hours assembling Apple’s iPhone touch screens in Suzhou, China.

In early 2010, it was independently confirmed that 137 workers, including us, were poisoned by a chemical called n-hexane which was used to clean iPhone screens. N-hexane is known to cause eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation, and leads to persistant nerve damage. Apple admitted to gross labour rights violations more than a year later.

If more people know about what we went through, Apple will feel pressured to change so other workers don’t have to suffer like we did.

Can you share this letter with your friends, and ask them to join you in signing our petition calling for a reform of working conditions at their factories?

We have been pressuring Apple, and its new CEO Tim Cook, for years to compensate those of us who were injured working for them, and demanding reform of working conditions at their Chinese factories so that their workers don’t suffer like we do. Now we need your help as customers or potential customers of Apple.

You’ve already signed the petition, and 125,000 others have too -- for that, we thank you. Now we need to get the word out that the problem isn't fixed. Apple still has a lot of work to do to address our collective concerns.

It has been over two years since many of us were hospitalized and treated but our debilitating symptoms continue. Rui-Qiang still can't find work because he can no longer stand for the long hours most jobs require. Jing-Chuan has to spend nearly $100 a month on health supplements.

But with all of us working together to pressure Apple to change, we can make sure what happened to us doesn’t happen to others too.

- Guo Rui-qiang and Jia Jing-chuan

You can easily share this message with others using this page:
http://sumofus.org/share/apple-message-share/

Comments

[miriam_e]

Apple are making moves, though certainly not as fast as they could. The latest petition is for workers who have been trying to get their complaints heard for more than a year. Many people are still in a bad way. I've read that a typical employee might rise before dawn in a massive dormitory, and work in silence for more than 12 hours a day, six days a week with forced overtime.

Extending your simile, I think Apple is more like a talking donkey that says it is going where you want it to, when it is actually heading at an angle to the intended destination. When you scold it, it does edge closer, though reluctantly. If it could get away without you noticing then it likely would.

I expect you're probably right that other companies are worse, but other than getting Apple to move things in the right direction I don't really know how to affect them. Apple has invested so much in their image they are susceptible to being pushed to do better. Other companies don't seem to care so much about their image so the only way I can see to change them is by altering workplace expectations... and that can be done by Apple.

[thorfinn]

And how do those conditions compare to the usual working conditions in China? And how real is that report?

And what do you expect Apple to do, exactly, that they are not doing?
Their CEO (who used to be their COO and incidentally in direct charge of all this, including working in China) has publically stated that they don't approve of unfair work practices. They've also signed on with the Fair Labor Association who conduct external labor audits for a whole bunch of people. Incidentally, the FLA gives Foxconn a clean ticket.

That's not to say there aren't problems and no doubt some terrible industrial accidents. But those happen everywhere there's factories, including right here in Australia. The question is whether health and safety is being prioritised or ignored, and it's fairly clear that Apple are not ignoring the problem at any level.

Apple is the most transparent electronics company about this out there - you can get all the gory details from their own website, which I linked to already.

A petition to other electronics makers to sign up with the FLA and to be jut a transparent would be of far more use.

Whilst people keeping wasting their time beating on Apple for doing the right thing and reporting every incident publically, every other company is just sweeping the whole thing behind closed doors.

[miriam_e]

I've spent a few hours reading the Apple supplier responsibility pages you pointed me to. Thank you for that. It does make for very interesting reading. It certainly is refreshing to see a big company taking positive step like that.

I agree we need to find a way to make other manufacturers be responsible too. Unfortunately, unless they value a clean image like Apple does, petitions are not likely to have much effect on them.

I don't think it is a waste of time to keep the heat on Apple. They get a chance to prove to people that they are fixing things, and it leads the way to improving the lot for all workers there. Heavens! Ensuring good conditions there will help move some industries back here if they can no longer exploit defenseless workers there. We all win. :)