More than 140,000 people join campaign calling on Apple to protect workers

By D.C. Denison, Globe Staff

More than 140,000 people across the world have joined a campaign on Change.org calling on Apple to protect workers who assemble Apple products from abuse, injury, and death, the organization said in a release.

Mark Shields, a self-identified Apple “super-user,” launched the campaign on Change.org after listening to a radio program detailing allegations of labor abuses at an Apple supplier factory in China, including child labor, serious physical injuries of workers from repetitive motions during long shifts, and stress-related worker suicides.

“Apple is supposed to ‘think different’, which is one of the reasons I love and use the products they make,” said Shields. “But the horrible human suffering that goes into making Apple products isn’t what they promise in their brand. I was heartsick when I learned what was really happening. That’s why I launched this campaign on Change.org and probably why so many people have joined so far.”

In less than 48 hours, Shields’ petition grew from a few hundred supporters to more than 140,000, many of whom have identified themselves as Apple fans.

Recent media reports, including a series in The New York Times, have detailed the harsh conditions that Apple’s sub-contractors impose on workers.

For example, according to a New York Times story, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured two years ago after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning.

“If Apple was warned, and didn’t act, that’s reprehensible,” Nicholas Ashford, a former chairman of the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, a group that advises the United States Labor Department, told the Times. “But what’s morally repugnant in one country is accepted business practices in another, and companies take advantage of that.”

Ashford is now a professor of Technology and Policy at the Engineering School at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the director of the MIT technology and law program.

Amanda Kloer, director of organizing for Change.org, said “Mark’s campaign is remarkable. He learned about an injustice associated with his favorite products, and instead of just feeling angry or sad, he decided to fight that injustice using his power as a consumer. Change.org is all about empowering people like Mark to make change in the world, and it has been incredible to watch his campaign take off.”