Apple Sued for Child Labor in African Cobalt Mines
Except, Apple Doesn’t Use Those Suppliers!
PING!
If you want on or off the Apple/Mac/iOS Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 12/18/2019 9:03:44 AM PST by yesthatjallen
A lawsuit filed this week in Washington, D.C., alleges that some of the world's largest technology firms knowingly engaged in the usage of child labor in Africa's cobalt mines.
The suit was filed by nongovernmental organization International Rights Advocates and mentions Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, USA Today reports.
Cobalt is an essential part of rechargeable lithium batteries that power many of the electronic devices that the listed companies sell.
According to the suit, two mining companies — British company Glencore and Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — supplied cobalt to all of the defendants.
Because of this, the suit asserts, the named tech giants are “aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children” in the mines that are located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Announcing you're "WOKE' is a means to deflect liberal criticism. It's like celebrities saying, 'Walls don't work' when they live behind walls.
While liberals are praising them for their 'progressive' business models and 'saving the planet' companies can fly under the liberal radar and do anything they want.
Assuming it is true that child labor is used to mine cobalt in some backwoods country that we have no control over....
Are we supposed to then refuse to accept any cobalt, and shut down all manufacturing that uses cobalt?
I mean, that would stop the child labor, and it is morally a “good thing”.
But if you believe that lithium batteries are saving the planet, can’t the next group just sue this group for destroying the lithium battery manufacture, and thereby increasing greenhouse gases and killing us all?
The fact that some of their products use cobalt does NOT mean they are "using child labor", any more than if their mechanical technicians use WD-40, they're "exploiting defenseless fish".
What a crock.
Young board meeting buy in dress shirt with suspenders for his pants:
“Uh, how about if we agree by voice vote to pencil in some reparations money from our profit statement? Should quiet the unrest. Agreed?”
correction: board meeting GUY...
Child Labor Revelation Prompts Apple to Make Supplier Policy Change
By Don Reisinger—March 3, 2017Apple has stopped buying cobalt mined by hand in Congo following reports of child labor and dangerous work conditions there.
Apple said said the new policy would be in effect until it can confirm that companies in its supply chain for the metal, used in iPhone and iPad batteries, have “appropriate protections” safeguarding workers and banning child labor, a company spokesperson told the Washington Post on Friday. The spokesperson added that all small mines must meet its workplace standards to qualify as suppliers.
The announcement follows a recent report by U.K. broadcaster Sky News, which investigated the state of cobalt mine working conditions in the Congo. The investigation found several children, including an eight-year-old named Dorsen, who worked 12-hour days carrying heavy sacks in sometimes heavy rain while supervisors threatened them with beatings. An 11-year-old worker, Richard, told Sky News that his body “ached” each day following his shift.
All of the workers—children or otherwise—suffer harsh working conditions with no protective equipment, according to the report. Hand-dug tunnels are at constant risk of collapse, leading to worker deaths, Sky News reported, based on interviews with workers. Those workers were extracting cobalt that eventually made its way into major technology company supply chains, including Apple’s (AAPL), to be used in lithium-ion batteries. Without it, the batteries, which power everything from iPhones to computers, wouldn’t work. Congo supplies 60% of the world’s cobalt.
Well, duh, of course they do.
If you want on or off the Apple/Mac/iOS Ping List, Freepmail me.
It might seem crazy, what I’m ‘bout to say...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZSe6N_BXs
Even Karl Communist Manifesto Marx hated the bourgeois socialists.
More evidence?
Socialism is Legal Plunder - “The Law”- Frederic Bastiat
My fellow citizens: We are being overtaken. Behold the CRIMINAL STATE.
I said, now watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical
A DEPLORABLE, oh, fanatical, criminal...
(DEPLORABLE mine)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_NGulTmh88
See the U.S. Department of Labor’s report “2018 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.”
All those companies have made very explicit statements & steps to denounce & avoid benefiting from child labor.
They are also very large companies with long supply chains which they may not always have immediate & clear insights into.
Such articles, written for the purpose of demonizing large & popular businesses, are needlessly abusive. There is absolutely no high-level “hey, let’s use child labor and deny it” awareness as implied by the author. Insofar as someone far down the supply chain may be abusing children to acquire cobalt, those businesses are immediately eliminated from the supply chain when found. Give credit where due.
But Tesla has a ‘fart button’ in their car...so that makes them cool and thus slave labor is OK.
What a deranged comment on your part.
There is no “slave labor” serving Tesla et al.
You’re better than such drivel.
What “real crime”? The article is another schlock attack piece, abusing such absurd “logic” as “some (and diminishing) use of child labor occurs to mine cobalt” + “cobalt is used for rechargeable batteries” = “Apple/Google/Tesla knowingly use child labor”. That’s STUPID. You’re better than that.
Elon Musk could murder someone in the street and some freepers would rush to his defense.
But they’re cool and all loving tho.
Well when you are competing to be the wealthiest men in the world, you have cut expenses somewhere.
?
For example, windmills killing birds is acceptable because they are combating a hoax they believe in.
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