Watchdog group SumOfUs has launched a new petition asking Apple to prove that workers at Foxconn factories in China weren’t subject to illegal overtime to make the iPad 3.
Specifically, they’re looking for Apple to turn over individual worker hours from November 2011-February 2012 to prove they’re not violating China’s labor laws which prohibit more than 36 hours of overtime per month.
Cult of Mac talked to SumOfUs founder Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman about what the group hopes to achieve with this latest petition, launched the morning of the iPad event as of this writing reached 41,500 of its 50,000 signature goal.
Raging Grannies protest outside the Palo Alto store Feb. 13
If you happen by the Palo Alto Apple Store Monday afternoon, that group of elderly women dressed in white dancing the robot to techno music on the sidewalk aren’t some funky flashmob.
They’re Raging Grannies, and they’re are mad as hell about worker conditions in China where Apple products are made.
Galvanized by a recent Mike Daisey story on NPR about Foxconn, they’re staging monthly protests outside the Palo Alto Apple store. They’ll be on the sidewalk grooving to bring more attention to Apple’s labor policies in China at 3 p.m. on March 12.
Protesters at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. Image credit: Ted Smith.
A small but determined group of protesters from consumer watchdog group SumOfUs gathered at Apple headquarters in Cupertino and headed inside the shareholder’s meeting to ask questions about working conditions at Foxconn.
The protest at Apple's San Francisco store, via Cory Moll.
Tourists wandering into Apple Stores in six cities around the globe found themselves in the middle of a media storm about the Cupertino company’s labor policies in China.
Members of two protests groups, who say they represent Apple customers, delivered petitions they claim are 245,000 signatures strong. Change.org and SumOfUs delivered petitions to Apple Stores today in Washington, DC, New York, San Francisco, London, Sydney and Bangalore.
Though the San Francisco protest appears as tiny as the one in New York, it did have one participant of note: Apple retail worker Cory Moll, who works at the downtown store.
It seems that lengthy report looking into the poor working conditions in Chinese factories assembling Apple products is going to haunt the Cupertino company for some time yet. The latest backlash comes from consumer group SumOfUs, which has launched a petition calling for Apple to “stop worker abuse,” with over 35,000 signatures collected in just 24 hours.
It isn’t easy being Android when you’re a fugly green humanoid robot and mad as hell. These protesters braved ridicule by dressing themselves as Google’s green mascot to bring attention to a thorny tech issue.
A new corporate accountability consumer group called SumOfUs wants Google to exit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. If the CoC sounds about as uncontroversial as Main Street and apple pie, think again.
The Android-clad activists want the Mountain View, California tech colossus to pull out of the Chamber, for a number of reasons, including because the CoC “aggressively supports” SOPA.
![Were Workers Forced To Violate Chinese Labor Laws To Make The New iPad? [Interview]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
![Were Workers Forced To Violate Chinese Labor Laws To Make The New iPad? [Interview]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/sumofus.jpg "sumofus")
![These Raging Grannies Shake It Outside The Apple Store For Worker’s Rights [Interview]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/applefeb13customers.jpg "applefeb13customers")
