Apple Stores around the world will be targeted by campaigners today in protest at working conditions in the company's manufacturing and supply chain.
According to CNN , the focus of the campaign will be Apple's store in Grand Central station in New York, though stores in London, Washington DC, San Francisco, London, Sydney and Bangalore will be targeted too.
The protests will be led by local consumers, though the Change.org and SumOfUs organisations, who have both spoken out on the matter, are involved in the campaign.
Petitions demanding that Apple take more action to end rights abuses in its supply chain, exposed by recent articles in the New York Times, will be handed in to the stores.
"This is a really huge step for us, in combining all of the voices we've collected from people all over the world asking Apple to clean up their supply chain," Change.org human rights organizer Sarah Ryan told CNNMoney.
Apple declined to comment on the matter.
Meanwhile, Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has reportedly had its systems hacked by a protest group critical of working conditions in the company's plants.
The hacker group, Swagg Security, announced the attack in a Twitter message on Wednesday, and also leaked data stolen from the Foxconn site to The Pirate Bay.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reacted with fury to reports of worker abuse in the NYT articles but promised Apple employees that he would "dig deeper" into the allegations in an internal email to all staff.
"Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain," Cook wrote.
"As we reported earlier this month, we've made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people."
"We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment. We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do -- and never have done -- is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain."
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Comments received
Aryugaetu said on Thu, 09 Feb 2012
From Wikipedia: Notable products which the company [Foxconn] manufactures include the Kindle, iPad, iPhone, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. Foxconn currently has factories in Asia, Europe and South America, which together assemble around 40 percent of consumer electronics products in the world.
This isn't an Apple thing. But, Apple is one of very few companies trying to do something about it, as their competition sits on their hands, trying to keep their prices as low as possible.
I'm quite sure if you can tell Mr. Cook how to make Apple products in the US at a competitive price, he'll listen.
If you want to petition, start at Congress and ask them to make the process of starting a small business less costly and easier. Our own Congressmen are millionaires as a result of investing in these overseas manufacturers. Start there.
DESIGNADE said on Thu, 09 Feb 2012
Delivered by campaigners in their Nike trainers I dare say.
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