No one is doing more

Apple CEO Tim Cook,

at a Goldman Sachs investors conference: “Apple takes working conditions very, very seriously andwehave for a very long time. . . . Our commitment is very, very simple: We believe that every worker has the right to a fair and safe work environment, free of discrimination, where they can earn competitive wages and they can voice their concerns freely, and Apple suppliers must live up to this to do business with Apple. . . . No one in our industry is doing more to improving working conditions than Apple.”

Taren Stinebrickner- Kauffman,

executive director, Sumofus. org: “Apple claims that it has a serious commitment to addressing labor violations. But instead of taking serious steps to address these problems, Apple has hired the Fair Labor Association, a group funded and controlled by the companies it ‘ independently’ monitors. Apple is not opening up to an independent auditor; it is funding a whitewashing operation. I, along with hundreds of thousands of consumers who signed our petition calling on Apple to produce an ethical iphone, believe in Apple’s ability to improve the lives of its workers. Welove Apple products, but as long as Apple refuses to make meaningful reforms for its workers, it will be hard for us to justify splurging on a new ipad. Apple wants us to Think Different. We want Apple to think ethical.”

David Pogue,

The New York Times: “Nobody wants to see workers exploited, and if Apple can pressure Foxconn to clean up its act, it should. Apple is the poster child for the conditions at the Foxconn factory. ( But) Apple isn’t the only company that builds electronics at Chinese factories. The truth is, almost all of them do. . . . What assurance would the Apples and Dells and Panasonics have that if they forced their Chinese contractors to adopt American- level wages and conditions, their competitors would all do so simultaneously? That’s the part that the protests are missing. Is Apple supposed to be the only company that takes on the costs of improving conditions? Are the protesters seeking a world where an iphone costs $ 350 and a competitive Android phone costs $ 200? . . . The issue is complicated. It’s upsetting. We, the consumers, want our shiny electronics. Wewant them cheap, yet we want them built by well- paid, healthy workers. But apparently, we can’t have both.”

Tim Worstall,

Forbes: “It is precisely because Apple manufactures in China that conditions for manufacturing workers in China are getting better. Better at a rate never before seen in human history. And if we were to be realistic about this, instead of spouting nonsense, then we would recognize this basic fact. And it is that last which is the most important fact about it all. Far from a boycott of Apple products being the best way to better conditions at the manufacturing plants, it is the purchase of products from such plants which is, as it has been for the past few decades, making China a richer and better place. Boycotting Apple for better Foxconn wages and conditions is like having sex for virginity. Entirely counterproductive and exactly the wrong thing.”

Dan Lyons,

Newsweek: “Can the world’s richest corporation really not afford to build iphones and ipads in the United States? Apple says no, but of course it can: American workers buildbmwsand Boeings, and they certainly could build all of an ipad’s components. The real question isn’t whether Apple can make products here, but whether it should. . . . An Apple spokesman points out that the company is creating thousands of new jobs in the U. S., hiring people to work in its retail stores and its Cupertino headquarters. And the microprocessors used in the iphone and ipad are, in fact, made in Austin, Texas. But here’s the irony. Those chips get stamped out in Texas, then shipped to China, where they are put into an ipad and sent back to the U. S. Does that even make sense? Not only does the excess transportation create lots of CO2 emissions but . . . the shipping lanes that Apple uses are protected by the U. S. military. That military protection isn’t cheap, and American taxpayers are footing the bill.”