Fundamental Question Sidestepped

Sleek iPads and iPhones made by underpaid, overworked Chinese laborers – some American consumers decry the disparities.

But, long-distance support for workers who build for Apple Inc. and other companies is unlikely to have much impact, according to ILR Assistant Professor Eli Friedman, an expert on labor in China.

"Ongoing labor rights violations in China, despite years and years of consumer campaigns in the West, are testament to this fact," he said in an interview.

In response to worker suicides and factory deaths, thousands rallied online this month to sign online petitions supporting workers who build products for Apple Inc. and other technology companies.

It's unlikely that American consumers would succeed in improving the work of the one million Chinese employed in technology production, Friedman said.

"The only way that workers have historically improved their working conditions is not by relying on the benevolence of consumers, but through forming independent, democratic unions that have real power on the shop floor," he said.

Apple, he said, "pays lip service to the idea of freedom of association" through its supplier code of conduct.

The code says: "Suppliers must respect the right of workers to associate freely with, form, and join workers' organizations of their own choosing, seek representation, and bargain collectively, as permitted by and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations."

That, Friedman said, "seems a bit disingenuous when Apple has very consciously moved a majority of their production to China, a country where there is no freedom of association."

"So, while increased consumer pressure or audits of factories is not a bad thing, the company is quite clearly avoiding the much more fundamental problem, which is that workers themselves are not empowered to have a real say in the workplace."

"And, I think that the lack of freedom of association is one of the primary reasons that Apple and other western corporations like doing business in China," he said in an email interview.

Online petitions circulated this month by Change.org and other groups seeking better working conditions for the Chinese workers, "might ratchet up the pressure a little bit."

"But, there isn't much evidence to suggest that this is going to result in major changes in working conditions in Apple's supply chain," said Friedman, a member of ILR's Department of International and Comparative Labor.

Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics, employs more than one million Chinese in production of iPhones and other products.

After months of human rights criticisms about working conditions at Chinese technology plants, Apple Inc. this year joined the Fair Labor Association, based in Washington, D.C. The association began auditing Foxconn’s China plants this month.