Friday, May 22, 2009

20090521 Taiwan Labor Group Protest against Apple's Sweatshop Factory

STOP EXPLOITING LABOURS, SAY NO TO BLOODY APPLE.

Time: 21 May 2009 (Thursday) AM10: 00 (about 60 people)

Place: Apple Computer Taiwan

(No.333, Sec. 2, Dunhua S. Rd., Da-an Dist., Taipei City, Taiwan)

Contact: Chu Wei-Li (0981-238-732)

English Contact: Torrent Pien (torrent.org@gmail.com)

Global financial crisis remains serious all over the world but Apple
Computer made an extremely big profit increase by 15% at Q1 '09
compared to the last quarter. However, the truth is that the big
profit Apple made has been proved to be the result of exploiting the
workers not only in Taiwan but also in mainland China.

WINTEK (Owner: Huang Hsien-Hsiung, Address: No.10, Jianguo Rd., Tanzih
Township, Taichung County, Taiwan) is one of the major suppliers of
Apple Computer. The ranking of market share in small size mobile phone
panels and touch panels is No.1 in Taiwan and No.3 worldwide. In the
last couple months, WINTEK not only laid off but also exploited lots
of workers in Taiwan and mainland China.

In Dec. 2008, WINTEK laid off over 600 workers in Taiwan without any
notice in advance and kept cutting workers' salary, forcing unpaid
leaves on employees. Recently, WINTEK received big and urgent orders
and tried to force workers to do more job without any vacation or
overtime salary. The labour department of Taiwan government has
already found proofs of offenses during the inspection process on
WINTEK. Besides, WINTEK's factories in Dongguan also cut workers'
salary without any negotiation with them. Last but not the least, the
food there is too bad for people and WINTEK has illegally laid off 19
workers who joined the strike against the foul working condition.

Apple Computer and WINTEK made their profit by sacrificing labours'
basic rights and exploiting labours illegally. Labour organizations
worldwide can't stand aside for it and has started a campaign to
condemn WINTEK.

Labour organizations in Taiwan and WINTEK workers union will protest
on May 21st, 2009 at Apple Computer Taiwan and ask Apple / WINTEK to
promise to improve the working conditions before May 31st, 2009, "Stop
exploiting the labours across the Taiwan Strait."

Appeals / Demands

1. Apple must follow the international Supplier's Code of Conduct and
demand WINTEK to give the jobs back to the workers who were laid off
in Taiwan and mainland China, withdraw the lawsuit of defamation, and
promise no retaliation on workers.

2. Apple must follow the international Supplier's Code of Conduct to
demand WINTEK to improve its working condition immediately.

3. Apple must demand WINTEK to allow third-party labour unions or
organization to enter the factories to conduct inspections on its
working condition, explain the fact of the event in public and look
into the responsibility. Besides, Apple should review its order to
WINTEK based on the results of the inspection and WINTEK's
improvement.

4. Apple must respect the will of the representatives of labours and
make direct talks with them. These representatives should be chosen by
WINTEK workers in Taiwan and mainland China.

Organizations:
Taiwan: National Federation of Independent Trade Unions, WINTEK
bargaining team, Solidarity Union, Youth labor union 95, Taiwan Labor
Information & Education Association, Confederation of Trade Union in
Taipei City, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, Tainan
County and Kaohsiung County.
HongKong: Globalization Monitor, SACOM, HKCTU, Labour Action China
Mainland China: China Worker Studies
Japan: Asian Pacific Workers Solidarty Links

Thursday, February 19, 2009

The mobile phone industry goes "green" ?

Is the mobile phone industry really turning itself green? Richard Wray of The Guardian asked.

There are some exemplary cases for supporting the "mobile-phone-go-green" story: a universal mobile phone charger to be introduced later in the year of 2009, and handsets with built-in solar panels from LG and Samsung.

In addition to these changes on the product level , "green" packaging, together with the use of soy-based inks instead of traditional dyes, is expected to come. So far so good.

This said, it is also suggested this "go-green' story is still far from satisfying, for many of the stakeholders of the mobile phone industry:

However, the mobile phone industry has a long way to go before it can count itself as "green", because the industry retains customers by throwing ever shinier mobile phones at them, based on replacement cycles of one to two years.

Ultimately, "green" phones need to be accompanied with proper recycling programmes. Steps are being taken - just ask your operator how you can dispose of your old handset in an environmentally friendly way - but too many old mobiles are still cropping up in landfill sites in the developing world.

To the e-waste problem, how the mobile phone industry could work out industry-wide solutions, as shown in the case of the universal charger, remains a mystery now. But in the mobile phone industry the recycling programmes will be very likely a central concern in the coming future for the major players.

Even so, there seems nothing special in this "go-green" story. Compared with its counterpart in the beverage industry, carbon labeling is so far a non-issue. Moreover, as far as I know, no incumbent in this industry reported explicit commitments for carbon reduction on production and/or logistics processes (indeed, I hope I am wrong), but commitments of this kind have already been business as usual in the PC industry. For the mobile phone industry as a whole, the "greening" of supply chains might belong to the next chapter of the story, at least for now.

What is more interesting in this story could come from an unexpected corner. ZTE, China's biggest handset manufacturer, with its solar-powered base station and $40 solar-powered mobile phone for the poor in the emerging markets, could put itself into a position to build up competitive advantage by providing affordable "green telecom" solutions for the bottom of the pyramid of the world.

Yet, similar attempts on the BOP markets had been made before, and the experience suggests whether this business strategy could link with social enterprise initiatives such as Grameen Telecom would determine significantly the very nature and degree of its potential "social impacts," and thus its business bottom line.

Will ZTE do this? It is not clear. But under the pressure of the serious economic downturn in the developed economies the mobile phone industry needs to search for new markets and new products. As such bringing "green telecom services" to millions without reliable power supplies shall never be regarded as a trivial enterprise, even from a conventional business perspective. And hopefully the affordable "green telecom" could re-define the terms of CSR in the mobile phone industry for the next decade, or even beyond.