It started with a podcast — an episode of the radio program “This American Life” played on a MacBook, streamed through an Apple AirPort and broadcast into Mark Shields’ kitchen in Columbia Heights.
The episode detailed accusations of the working conditions in Chinese factories where Apple produces its iPhones, iPads and other devices. There were stories of 14-hour workdays, underage employees and rampant repetitive-motion injuries. Shields, who says he “loves being an Apple user,” was moved to act.
So Shields, a D.C. resident for 10 years, drafted a petition on Change.org, a petition-building website. After just a few days, the petition had more than 30,000 signatures. Within weeks, it was pushing 200,000.
The petition asks that Apple devise a strategy to protect overseas workers during new product releases, when product quotas spike, causing increases in injuries and suicides among workers. It’s also asking the company to publish results of Fair Labor Association inspections at its plants in China.
Shields and about 40 supporters congregated outside the Apple Store in Georgetown Thursday to deliver the petition to store employees. From New York to San Francisco, in India and Australia, other protesters were making similar deliveries to Apple, said Change.org Organizing Director Amanda Kloer, who was at the Georgetown store dressed like an iPhone.
“There’s a lot of things that tip a petition,” she said. “Apple is a brand that a lot of people use and care about, and that’s the reason they care about this issue.”
There’s no telling whether Shields’ petition drive will affect Apple’s manufacturing practices. An Apple employee promised to get Shields to the “appropriate people.”
“They clearly have the creativity and capital to make a change,” Shields said. “This is a complicated problem, but Apple is good at solving complicated problems.”
Apple said it is aware of the petition and that the assessment of its overseas factories would be made public. In a statement, the company said it already insists that its contractors “treat workers with dignity and respect.”
“We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain,” the company said.
