For an ethical iPhone, Apple should look to clothing and Cambodia [... well, it's not that ethical either in Cambodia!]

"The reality is that Apple has the influence to flex a little muscle." Photo: AP

April 2, 2012
Rachel Louise Snyder
The Sydney Morning Herald

Cambodia has proved it. In the late 1990s, the country negotiated a deal with the Clinton administration that linked good factory conditions to increased access to the US market. Cambodia brought in the International Labor Organisation to oversee factory monitoring and create unions, among other things, and in less than a decade garments became the country's primary export - more than 95 per cent of all goods exported, in fact. Eventually, the ILO turned over administration of the program to local authorities.

The tech titan must show some leadership in shutting the sweatshops.

In the world of global manufacturing, it seems that multinational corporations are destined to take their turn in the sweatshop spotlight. Apple's turn, merely the latest, has taken an unusual twist.

Chief executive Tim Cook, on a trip to China last week, visited a Foxconn factory and released photos of grinning workers on the iPhone production line. Cook's trip came after months of investigations, centred on Foxconn, of Apple's alleged sweatshop conditions. As the story gained momentum - in part because of a theatrical performance by a man named Mike Daisey, who has since apologised for fabricating much of his narrative - Apple hired the Fair Labor Association to audit conditions at its factories. It found widespread overtime abuse and subsistence pay at Foxconn, and the manufacturer and Apple pledged to do better.

Apple and Foxconn appear to be on the right track. But it is a promise by an organisation that isn't really beholden to anyone. Monitoring, which may offer consumers a balm, used to be all the global manufacturers had. That is no longer the case, and Apple - the leader of the tech world - has an opportunity and a responsibility to prove itself a leader in providing ethical working conditions. The company need only look to the garment industry for an example.

Global manufacturing has been a target of anti-sweatshop activists for years. The garment industry's response in the 1990s was for the brands to monitor their own factories. Beyond the obvious conflict of interest, there are other issues at play. Factories often have contracts with many companies, all of which now have their own codes - some more enforceable than others.

Companies soon realised they could not effectively monitor their factories alone. Enter the third-party auditors, including Apple's new partner the FLA. I've seen many auditors, including Social Accountability International and Verite, do very good work, even in China. But what we have now is an industry where factories are monitored incessantly; where the quality and efficacy of monitoring varies wildly; where local laws, if they exist, are often ignored in favour of international buyers; and where factories pay enormous sums to monitoring groups just to be in the international game.

Monitoring, when done effectively, takes a lot of time, from two days to a week. The International Labor Organisation puts the cost at $1500 to $3000 an audit, and many factories are audited as frequently as five or six times a month.

There is, though, a better way. Cambodia has proved it. In the late 1990s, the country negotiated a deal with the Clinton administration that linked good factory conditions to increased access to the US market. Cambodia brought in the International Labor Organisation to oversee factory monitoring and create unions, among other things, and in less than a decade garments became the country's primary export - more than 95 per cent of all goods exported, in fact. Eventually, the ILO turned over administration of the program to local authorities.

Today, federal law guarantees the garment workers of Cambodia breast-feeding breaks, 43 paid leave days annually, medical clinics on site and 90 days paid maternity leave, among other things.

That program, called Better Work, has become a model for Haiti, Lesotho, Jordan, Nicaragua, Indonesia and Vietnam. It is a partnership among the ILO, the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, international brands, local factories, local governments and non-governmental organisations.

Apple, admittedly, is in a tight spot. China does not allow formal unions (apart from the government's own union), and labour laws are generally set by prefecture rather than at the federal level.

The reality is that Apple has the influence, economically and otherwise, to flex a little muscle. The company has long been visionary when it comes to technology that enhances the lives of privileged Westerners. Now let's see if it can take on the moral and ethical challenge of improving the lives of its overseas workers.

Rachel Louise Snyder is the author of Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade and an assistant professor at American University. This is an edited version of an article published in The Washington Post.