The Working Class Americans are caught between the Corporate Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
Our once mighty factories and industries that kept Americans dreaming the Great American Dream, are now devouring millions of desperate men and women in Third World Nations. If we refuse to buy the cheap products we are led to believe that we must have to live the good life, we are the ones who go without. If we demand that the workers be paid a living wage and have decent working conditions, we won't be able to afford the products we have been trained to believe we can't live without.
I would suggest that we need to get back to basics, but that isn't going to float. We just have to have our toys and our cars and our convenient life style. So we are doomed to go down the road toward Third World Status ourselves. Held prisoner by our Corporate Masters.
Curious Carl
----- Original Message -----From: David ChittendenSent: Thursday, March 01, 2012 3:42 AMSubject: Re: Apple SpinHello,
Please remember that every one of your high-tech companies, clothing manufacturers, auto manufacturers, large agriculture, and just about everything else we use to live in the world today uses the same as Apple. Levis was vilified in the mid 90's just as Apple is now, and their was little appreciable change. In this case, at least Apple has a focus on accessibility - something which none of the other high-tech companies, which all follow the exact same manufacturing practices, has. So, be careful about vilifying Apple. After all, it is possible to win and cause Apple to lose marketshare, which would be quite detrimental for the blindness community.
David Chittenden, MSc, MRCAA
Email: dchittenden@gmail.com
Mobile: +64 21 2288 288
Sent from my iPhone
On 1/03/2012, at 10:57, Charles Crawford <ccrawford@rcn.com> wrote:
> Hi Carl and Miriam and all,
>
> This is distressing. As much as I love my iphone; I really don't want to support unfair labor practices and I am willing to pay the price for decent working conditions.
>
> -- Charlie.
>
> At 09:58 PM 2/28/2012, you wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: <mailto:miriamvieni@optonline.net>Miriam Vieni
>> To: <mailto:blind-democracy@octothorp.org>'Blind Democracy Discussion List'
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 6:50 PM
>> Subject: Apple Spin
>>
>> I had to convert this to text or else it would have probably not been
>> accepted by the server. But if you're interested in Hi Miriam,
>> Yes. Please send me the links.
>> Carlthe links, I'll send the
>> original email to you off list. The This American Life episode is probably
>> available from NPR. I accessed it from an article in Truthout. It's
>> excellent.
>> From: Kaytee Riek, SumOfUs.org [us@sumofus.org]
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 3:43 PM
>> To: Miriam Vieni
>> Subject: Apple spin
>>
>> Miriam,
>>
>> This email is not a normal email. This email is not going to immediately ask
>> you to do anything. It's long. It talks about big-picture strategy, not just
>> today's latest corporate tactic.
>>
>> The conventional wisdom in online activism is that we shouldn't send emails
>> like this.
>>
>> But the fight to improve the treatment of workers in Apple's supply chain is
>> going to be a long, hard one - and it's going to be fought on the shifting
>> sands of PR spin, against one of the most sophisticated corporate media
>> apparatuses in history.
>>
>> So we think it's important for the entire SumOfUs community (all 240,000 of
>> us!) to take a step back from the day-to-day and examine how the fight has
>> unfolded, both behind the scenes and in the PR war being waged in public
>> since we first started campaigning a month ago to get Apple to address the
>> rampant violations of workers' rights throughout its supply chain.
>>
>>
>> How this all started
>> Like many of you, at the beginning of this year we had only a vague idea
>> that there might be something rotten in Apple's supply chain. We had heard
>> about the suicides at Apple factories, but not much else.
>>
>> After reading the New York Times' exposé and listening to the This American
>> Life episode in January, we started to learn more about how miserable life
>> can be in the massive dystopian industrial complexes where Apple's products
>> are made.
>>
>> As Apple consumers ourselves (most of our staff owns at least one Apple
>> product), we wanted to act.
>>
>> We contacted partners in China who investigate Apple's factories,
>> interviewing workers and former workers. We heard from relatives of Apple
>> workers, thanking us for getting the word out. Like the letter we sent out
>> last week from the pair of former workers, we were able to put faces to the
>> statistics, and that motivated us to keep organizing to win improvements in
>> workers' lives.
>>
>>
>> Apple responds
>> Since the New York Times and This American Life reports and the launch of
>> our campaign, Apple has gone on a charm offensive, hiring the so-called
>> "Fair Labor Association" to inspect its factories and giving Nightline an
>> exclusive, supervised tour of Foxconn, Apple's largest supplier. Meanwhile,
>> Foxconn announced a pay raise and hired Burston-Marsteller -- the PR firm
>> that lobbied for Big Tobacco and helped corporations re-brand after the the
>> likes of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, the Tylenol poisonings, and
>> the massive Bhopal chemical spill.
>>
>> While disingenuous, these actions show that the company is listening, that
>> it takes us seriously and wants to maintain its image. But Apple's moves so
>> far are classic "early stage" corporate responses to a campaign, where a
>> company wants to do the minimum effort to make people forget about the
>> problem, without spending any real money on problems that by definition
>> require considerable money to solve.
>>
>> For example, Foxconn has raised wages as a PR move before - only to
>> immediately offset worker gains by raising the cost of its dormitories and
>> cafeterias. The truth is, Foxconn can't afford to truly raise real wages for
>> its workers because Apple refuses to let its suppliers earn a substantial
>> profit - Apple had an astounding 44% profit margin last quarter, while
>> Foxconn earned a meager 1.5% profit.
>>
>> As for the supposedly "independent" Fair Labor Association, who Apple has
>> hired to "investigate": It is both funded and controlled by the very
>> corporations it's supposed to be monitoring and has a long track record as a
>> PR spin machine rather than an effective watchdog for workers' rights. In
>> his first few days in China, before even the pretense of interviews with
>> workers, the head of the FLA gave glowing reviews to the press simply on the
>> basis of guided tours conducted by Foxconn executives. He even asserted that
>> the suicide cluster that prompted Foxconn to put up its infamous suicide
>> nets must have been due to "boredom," as if workers were leaping from
>> buildings for a cheap thrill.
>>
>> Journalists fall for these traps all the time. So the next time you hear a
>> positive story about Apple's alleged steps forward in the press, remember
>> that they may well have been suckered by Apple's massive PR machine. If
>> Apple makes any serious moves in response to our pressure to improve
>> workers' lives, we'll be sure to confirm it with people on the ground and
>> let you know!
>>
>>
>> Keeping up the fight
>> Thus far, we have been remarkably successful at getting the truth of what's
>> going on in Apple's factories out to the media. Thanks to each and every one
>> of you who signed, called, wrote and delivered petitions yourselves, this
>> issue is front and center with Apple, and it's not going away. Thanks to the
>> credibility of a petition signed by over 120,000 people, our campaign has
>> been featured in Forbes, the Washington Post, the BBC, Le Monde and Taren
>> was interviewed on Olbermann. We even latched onto a silly facebook meme to
>> help get the word out about our campaign!
>>
>> Three weeks ago, we delivered our petition (along with another 250,000
>> signatures from Change.org) to six Apple stores on four continents. Then
>> just last week, we held a rally outside Apple's Annual General Meeting of
>> shareholders to keep this issue in the news, and attempted to deliver your
>> petitions directly to Tim Cook. Around the same time, hundreds of you
>> stopped by your local Apple store to take the issue directly to Apple
>> employees where it matters most -- its retail stores. Many of you were told
>> by managers at those retail stores that they'd been told by Apple's HQ not
>> to accept our petitions.
>>
>> This is how victories are won -- Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, is crossing his
>> fingers and hoping that this goes away quietly, that people forget about
>> Foxconn, and that the workers once again become faceless statistics. What
>> they don't yet understand is that we aren't going to forget.
>>
>>
>> Our basic demands
>> In the fight for better working conditions in the tech industry's supply
>> chain, Apple is the 800-pound gorilla. They are the largest public company
>> in the world, with a centralized supply chain and a commitment to a perfect
>> final product. They have $100 billion sitting in the bank, meaning they can
>> afford to ensure the people who make their products are treated humanely.
>> Yes, other companies are also guilty of poor working conditions, but none
>> has the ability to change the working conditions for millions of workers
>> like Apple does. If Apple demands change, that change will ripple throughout
>> the industry.
>>
>> That's why we're demanding Apple make a few concrete changes, like ensuring
>> factory inspections are conducted regularly -- and unannounced in advance to
>> management -- by genuinely independent workers' rights groups. We want to
>> see an end to illegal amounts of forced overtime, and a commitment to paying
>> workers a living wage (before overtime is factored in). We believe employees
>> should benefit when Apple profits from their work. And we want Apple to put
>> in place real sanctions with teeth for suppliers who violate its code of
>> conduct.
>>
>> For consumers, the additional costs will be negligible. Apple currently
>> spends $10 on manufacturing costs -- including labor costs -- for each iPad,
>> and $8 for each iPhone. Meanwhile, it makes hundreds of dollars of profit
>> off each device, which has helped it achieve a market capitalization bigger
>> than the GDP of all but 19 countries. The main difference for consumers will
>> be a longer delay in product roll-out, as the most grueling conditions
>> currently occur when Foxconn workers are cranking the latest iPad or iPhone.
>> The questions is not whether you would be willing to pay more for your
>> iPhone, but whether you could wait a few months longer to ensure that the
>> people who make it are treated like human beings.
>>
>>
>> The way forward
>> Apple provides excellent customer service and cares deeply about its brand -
>> but is also one of the most secretive corporations in the world and has
>> built an organizational culture capable of blocking out the most intense
>> outside criticism.
>>
>> Our job, as consumers, is to continue to keep the pressure on until Apple
>> decides that the risks inherent in the status quo - the risks to its brand,
>> its staff morale, and its loyal customer base - are higher than the costs of
>> taking real action to improve workers' lives. That's what's worked in past
>> campaigns like this, and it's what will ultimately lead to victory in this
>> campaign.
>>
>> It will be a long fight, but it's well worth fighting. If we can change the
>> way the largest corporation on the planet treats its workers in the era of
>> globalized supply chains, it will set a precedent that will reverberate
>> globally for decades. Together, we're already forcing Apple to pay attention
>> - and we're going to keep on fighting.
>>
>> Now, in case you haven't already, here are three things you can do to help
>> us keep up the fight.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks for reading, and for fighting with us,
>>
>> Taren, Kaytee, Claiborne, and Emma - the tiny SumOfUs team, working with you
>> to take on the biggest companies in the world.
>>
>>
>>
>> P.S. Haven't read enough yet? Here are some more articles and resources to
>> check out.
>>
>> In These Times - Apple turns to the Larry King of Sweatshop Scandals
>> SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) video - The
>> truth of the Apple iPad behind Foxconn's lies
>> Mike Daisey's Blog (Mike is the guy behind the This American Life story that
>> brought all of this to light initially)
>>
>>
>> SumOfUs is a world-wide movement of people like you, working together to
>> hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable
>> path for our global economy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on
>> Facebook.
>>
>> Was this email forwarded to you? Click here to add yourself to SumOfUs.
>>
>> If you don't want to receive emails from us anymore, you can remove yourself
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>> we'll miss you!
>>
>>
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