Help hold Apple to its word and ensure that the men and women who make our iGadgets work in safe conditions, finally receive a living wage and aren’t forced to work illegal overtime.
Apple’s report is finally out -- and it confirms everything that workers’ rights advocates have been saying for years: The people who make your iGadgets are illegally overworked and still can’t afford to provide for their families. Not only that, but their health and even lives are in danger from widespread violations of basic safety protocols.
Apple is admitting this is a big deal -- but here’s the problem: they don’t plan to solve the problems for FIFTEEN months! All along we’ve been fighting for actual changes in working conditions, not just another report -- and so far these promises that Apple is making haven’t actually improved any workers’ lives.
Instead, Apple is hoping that in fifteen months, we’ll have forgotten about this report and their promises. We can’t let that happen. Can you help us go the distance with them and hold them accountable now and in the future?
Yes, I will donate $53 -- the amount that a typical Foxconn worker makes in half a week of work -- to help hold Apple to its promises.1
Yes, I will donate $32 -- just 5% of the cost of a new iPhone -- to fund the campaign to make sure Apple keeps its promises and produces an ethical iPhone.2
Yes, I will donate $8 -- the ridiculously small amount of an iPhone’s price that goes to the men and women who actually make it -- to help make sure Apple pays those workers enough that they can afford food and housing for their families.3
Get this: Apple conducted a nearly identical investigation -- with very similar findings -- way back in 2006. At that time, Apple promised that Foxconn, their biggest supplier and the exact same company the FLA investigated this time around, would “enforce the weekly overtime limits set by Apple’s Code of Conduct."
That was SIX YEARS ago. So what happened? Public and media interest subsided, no one held Apple to its promises and the world forgot -- until Foxconn workers literally started to drop dead and the media started paying attention again. We can’t let it happen again.
Click here to donate to keep up the pressure on Apple.
Our collective pressure has been enormously successful so far -- all the more incredible when you realize we are going toe-to-toe with the largest corporation in the world. In fact, in the time it takes you to read this email, Apple will have earned more new revenue than SumOfUs.org has spent in our entire existence. Apple has over 60,000 full-time employees; we have three. We are run on a shoestring budget against a corporate behemoth that has some of the best PR people in the world, who would love nothing more than to grind this story into the dust.
SumOfUs.org is only four months old, and we don’t even have an office yet. We’ve devoted a ton of our very finite time and resources to pressuring Apple over the last few months -- even while we’ve been hard at work successfully convincing Trader Joe’s to buy tomatoes from Florida farms that don't abuse their workers, campaigning to get Walmart to commit not to sell Monsanto’s new potentially toxic GM corn, beating the ultra-conservative National Organization for Marriage at its own game when it threatened to boycott Starbucks for the company’s support for gay marriage, and sending Limbaugh advertisers packing.
We're David to Apple's Goliath, but right now we're winning -- Apple is clearly worried about its public image on this issue. And while it won't be easy, if we can keep up public and media pressure for another 15 months to make sure that Apple actually keeps its promises, we will have improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers.
Help us continue. Click here to donate.
We have stuck with this Apple campaign for so long because we can see the impact we’re having and because we have spoken with some of the men and women affected in China. We know that winning this campaign will mean real improvements in people's lives, and not just for workers in Apple's factories. If we succeed, it could cause a tidal wave of reforms across the Chinese electronics manufacturing sector.
But we need the resources to keep this campaign going. If we have the funding, we’ll be able to keep this issue in the spotlight until Apple actually takes action. For instance, we could:
- Hold ralliesoutside key Apple events to make sure that the most powerful Apple executives and shareholders know that we’re watching them;
- Run Facebook adsdirectly targeting Apple employees on the 3, 6, 9, and 12 month anniversaries of the FLA report -- reminding them of their promises and asking them what progress they’ve made;
- Act quickly to build media interestwhen further workers’ rights abuses come to light at Apple suppliers (e.g., if there is another case of poisoning or more suicides);
- Attend Apple-focused conferenceslike MacWorld next January to make sure the media writing about the next great iThing have to include a mention of the horrendous working conditions that people are forced to bear;
- Hire a part-time researcher to track Apple and Foxconn’s actions and make sure they’re actually working towards the solutions they promised.
We really, really want to keep working on this campaign -- because we believe that workers everywhere have the right to a living wage, sustainable hours, and a safe working environment. Because we believe Apple can lead on workers rights the way it has led in so many other areas. Because we want to be able to buy Apple products with pride.
And most importantly -- because this report and Apple’s promises haven’t actually improved workers’ lives yet. Help us see this campaign through until we feel confident that Apple has kept its promises.
Thanks so much,
Taren
P.S. Because our staff and budget are so tiny, you can be sure that we’re going to spend your money as wisely and efficiently as possible. Even small donations -- $65, $25, or even just $8 -- can make a big difference in our ability to respond to events quickly and creatively. Please donate whatever you can afford to help the workers who make our iGadgets.
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Further reading on the FLA report & Apple's working conditions
- The Fair Labor Association’s Foxconn Investigation Report
- Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM)’s open letterto Apple CEO Tim Cook on Apple’s abuses
- SumOfUs.org's memo to journalistsbefore the FLA’s report
- The New York Times’ investigative piece “In China, Human Costs are Built Into an iPad”
Selected press clips about SumOfUs.org's Apple campaigning
- Forbes: “Heat Turning Up on Apple after ‘Nightline’ Broadcast”
- International Business Times: “Latest iPad: Apple Still Exploiting Chinese Workers, Activists Say”
- Mashable: “Activist Group Says Apple Hired Auditors as PR Move”
- Countdown with Keith Olbermann: Taren's interview
- Washington Post: “Petition calls for ‘ethical’ iPhone 5”
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Citations:
- The iEconomy: How Much do Foxconn Workers Make?, New York Times, 24 Feb 2012
- Apple Store cart for the smallest iPhone, unlocked(so without any wireless carries deducting fees), Apple.com, accessed on 6 April 2012
- iPhone 4S Carries BOM of $188, IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Reveals, IHS iSuppli Market Research, 20 October 2011
SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.