Ralph Nader has a message for Tim Cook: Stop listening to Carl Icahn.
In a scathing letter to Cook published in today’s Wall Street Journal, the former presidential candidate takes Apple’s CEO to task for bending to the will of billionaire investor Icahn and issuing more stock buybacks, rather than listening to its workers and addressing the horrendous working conditions at its factories in China.
Nader’s letter proposes Foxconn workers’ hours be cut to 40 a week and their pay doubled, which would only cost Apple an extra $5.4 billion annually.
“‘Designed by Apple in California’ has a nicer ring to it than ‘Assembled by workers paid about a dollar per hour, working 11-hour shifts, and sleeping eight to a room in the Jabil Circuit corporate dormitories in Wuxi, China….
“You had a choice for the $130 billion: living wages for workers or stock buybacks for millionaires? You chose buybacks. Here’s a challenge for the present and future use of surplus profits: why not let the customers decide?”
Cook just wrapped up a visit to China this week where he visited workers at Foxconn factories, as well as discussed privacy issues with government officials.
You can read Nader’s full letter below:
Source: The Wall Street Journal