On Wednesday, activists started drawing attention to their event with a press release stating that they would bring over 250,000 signatures to the Grand Central Terminal store, trying to reveal claims of employee abuse at Foxconn to the general public. As CNet reports, a small bunch of supporters who arrived on Thursday were far outnumbered by media representatives to cover the meeting.
The event was organized by Change.org and SumofUS, and it was reportedly meant to hand-deliver the petitions and drum up attention to labor conditions at Chinese plants that manufacture products like iPhone instead of gathering a large crowd. “Apple was surely prepared for us,” organizer Sarah Ryan commented. “They were very polite. We hope they will give the signatures some thinking.” Though not calling for a boycott of Apple products, the activists hope that the iPhone maker will address employee working environment overseas more closely.
The petitions follow a few media reports focusing on Foxconn and its relationship with the Cupertino electronics developer. Late in January, The New York Times repeatedly highlighted the “human costs” Apple throws into the iPhone and other products, while CNN published an interview with an anonymous Foxconn employee this week who revealed a sad truth about working conditions at the Chinese facilities.
Media have largely described Foxconn as the company that deprives workers of adequate benefits, often forcing them to work long overtime hours. While employees have also organized demonstrations, a number of Foxconn workers threatened suicide at a plant making Xbox 360 consoles for Microsoft earlier this year.
Apple, for its part, seems to be offended with accusations of neglecting attitude to labor conditions overseas. Last month, Tim Cook sent an e-mail to employees, stating that the company will keep scrutinizing its supply chain and is poised to find more problems, but that Apple will never ignore worker-related issues.
Kidding… I support whatever it takes to fight for worker’s rights all around the world, but I hope they will be delivering these petitions to Google, Amazon, Samsung, Dell, HP, Microsoft and the hundreds of other well known tech companies who utilize these same workers.
Only Apple is acknowledging that there’s even a problem.
Wow. What happened to the hundreds or thousands of people that were supposed to show up in protest? I listened to WCBS 880 am most of the late night / early morning on Thursday. They repeated this story over and over, saying that Apple would be swarmed by people in protest. What happened to everyone else, outside of this dozen or so number of people that showed up? Where was everyone else?
Just so we’re clear… people are upset at how Foxconn’s employees are treated, right?
I only ask because Foxconn makes products for a ton of different companies… and not all of Foxconn’s 1 million employees build Apple products…
2 lietome
Because they were forced to.
I like the impact of this on Apple’s stock price. More petitions, please!
And did you see the huge crowd and mile-long line last week when Foxconn was hiring?
So this is good enough reason not to further improve conditions when Apple is making a huge profit? We can do better than this and Apple is the company to start a movement. This notion that things aren’t super bad so lets do nothing is turning a blind eye to the problem.
First of all, we can’t compare workers in USA with China. As long as no human rights are violated, we can continue. Wages at foxconn are probably above average compared to the rest of china’s workforce.
Canada gets a year off for maternity leave. USA, it’s 12 weeks, unpaid. So are we in violation of workers rights? It’s illegal in France to work more than 35 hours a week. Compared to France, we are slaves if work 40 hours a week.
If you own products by Acer, Amazon, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, Dell, HP, Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola, Netgear, Nintendo, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Vizio…. and are protesting Apple, then you are a hypocrite. They all use the same factories. Oh, and don’t forget all your clothes that are made in China, in what I would assume to be worse conditions. I just looked at my box of toothpicks..yup, made in China. As much as Apple fans must admit to being Apple fans, some others must admit that they care more about hating Apple than giving anything remotely close to a shit about Foxconn workers. The fact that Apple is doing more than all these companies combined on this issue makes you not only a hypocrite, but an idiotic and ignorant one at that.
My signature is on one of those papers
It’s amazing to me how people who are pro-apple whine and say they are doing it to!!! Can’t accept apple is not perfect..sad.
Americans will have to SAVE to buy their IToys….we’ll be a better country for it. Fifty years from now we’ll be much happier for it….Over ue.