Pausing to think about plight of world’s 300,000 child soldiers for a moment – National Consumers League

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makiBy Reid Maki, Director of Social Responsibility and Fair Labor Standards

Today is an important day if you care about the welfare of children. Advocates have named February 12 “International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers” to highlight one of the worst forms of child labor. It’s hard to imagine that in 2013 the use of child soldiers is alive and thriving, but the BBC estimates that there are 300,000 child soldiers internationally. This number includes children of elementary school age who are handed automatic weapons and asked to kill, as well as others who are used for slave labor to support armies. Since January 2011, child soldiers have been used in at least 19 countries.

Many of the children suffer the worst forms of psychological warfare from their captors, who in many cases break them down by forcing them to kill or maim their friends or family. Many girls are sexually assaulted and forced to serve as sexual slaves. Many child victims are given drugs to keep them compliant. Their years of enforced service often produce intense psychological scarring that makes it hard to return to their communities. In some cases, they are shunned by their villages. Hear one girl’s compelling story in this YouTube video.

The Child Labor Coalition has tracked dozens of stories regarding the use of child soldiers over the last year and engages with its members to perform advocacy to reduce the use of child soldiers. Most recently, the warfare in Mali led to the recruitment of child soldiers, including children as young as 12. In early January, the United Nations decried the use of child soldiers in the Central African Republic, and in India, reports emerged that the militant group, the Garo National Liberation Army was using children in a variety of roles to support combat, including possibly the use of armed children. In early December, 2012, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on two “March 23 (M23)” leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for allegedly using child soldiers.

Not all the news has been bad. In June 2012, Burma made significant strides in reducing its use of child soldiers when it released an action plan to tackle the problem. In 2012, Yemeni authorities said they were committed to stopping the use of children in the military.

The challenges governments face to end the use of child soldiers are often formidable, however. A February 6th Huffington Post blog by Jake Scobey-Thal noted that despite some progress, child soldiers are still being used in Burma and cited the International Labour Organization that their numbers may be as high as 5,000.

Two members of the Child Labor Coalition, World Vision and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been leaders in the effort to pressure the US government into abiding by a congressional law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which prohibits military aid to countries that use child soldiers. They’ve also provided a valuable service with early warnings when civil strife reaches the point that children begin to be dragged into military conflicts as they have been recently in Mali, Syria and the DRC.

Is the U.S. doing enough to protect children from becoming child soldiers or from being harmed by military conflict? On February 5th, HRW cited recent recommendations by the United Nations (UN) committee of experts and urged the United States to do more to protect children harmed by conflict. The UN committee had expressed alarm about reports that hundreds of children have died during US airstrikes in Afghanistan over the last four years and noted that children have been arrested and detained in Afghanistan. US laws, said the committee of experts, have also excluded former child soldiers from securing asylum here.

“The US can and should do more to protect children affected by armed conflict,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at HRW, who urged the U.S. to “take decisive action” on the children rights committee’s recommendations to address these problems.

In November 2012, Jesse Eaves, a senior policy advisor for child protection for World Vision told IRIN Humanitarian News and Analysis that the use of presidential waivers which is becoming a frequent occurrence is weakening the authority of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. “When the United States government gives a waiver to a country identified in the State Department’s [Trafficking in Persons] report as country using children in their national military, this weakens the authority of the law by not holding the country accountable for removing children from their armed forces,” said Eaves.

In a press release about International Day to End the Use of Child Soldiers, Amnesty International called on governments to adopt a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) to prevent armed forces, like those in Mali, from using weapons to recruit children as soldiers. Final talks on an ATT treaty are scheduled to occur in March, and according to Amnesty, “the current draft ATT text proposes weak rules to help prevent arms transfers to states or groups using child soldiers.”

Clearly much work remains to be done to get the U.S. and other governments to do the right thing when it comes to child soldiers, but working together, the members of the CLC and its allies hope that in the near future the use of child soldiers will be banished. Readers interested in this issue should visit the White House comment page and let their concerns about the use of child soldiers and presidential waivers of the provisions of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act be known.

 

Hoping Treasury Secretary-designee Lew takes a new tack – National Consumers League

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By Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director

It appears that when the government was handing out TARP funds and bailing out ailing financial firms, the “special master for compensation” Patricia Geoghegan approved $6.2 million in raises for General Motors, Ally, and AIG. These are the findings of Christy Romero, special inspector general for TARP in her new report.

Surprise, surprise. Sheila Bair documents this preferential treatment for fat-cat executives in her book, Bull by the Horns. From Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to Presidential Advisor Larry Summers, you can count on high-level government officials with ties to Wall Street time and again to look after their friends first before the American taxpayer.

When these bonuses were being bestowed on the industry icons, Treasury’s Compensation Chief Kenneth Feinberg (and former NCL Trumpeter Honoree), was appointed to a special oversight post created during the crisis. He scolded the companies for what he called “ill-advised” payouts to executives and vowed to curb lavish pay. Treasury nonetheless allowed seven firms to bypass pay restrictions from 2009 to 2011, according to this latest report from Christy Romero’s office. Romero said that “Treasury made no meaningful reform to its processes. Lacking criteria and an effective decision-making process, Treasury risks continuing to award executives of bailed out companies excessive cash compensation without good cause.”

That says it all. We can only hope that the new Treasury Secretary-designee, Jacob Lew, if he’s confirmed, will take a different tack. Forbes Magazine columnist Robert Lenzner has high hopes. He says in a recent column about Lew, “It’s a relief to have a man who is not in the hip pocket of the big banks, who is not part of the pin-striped old boys club, who’s likely to put the interests of his former brethren high on the priority list.” That’s a hopeful sign.

Consumer Groups Call on President and Congress to Pursue Strong Consumer Agenda – National Consumers League

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February 1, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, NCL, (412) 945-3242, carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC– In joint letters sent to President Obama and Congressional leaders, eight of the nation’s leading consumer organizations urged policymakers to pursue a strong, robust agenda of consumer reforms.

With the President’s second term and a new session of Congress underway, the groups are calling for measures to strengthen the consumer’s voice in Washington, to continue improvements in health care and financial services, and to ensure that Americans’ food and products are safe.  They are also advocating for energy and telecommunications reforms, policies to strengthen regulations that protect the public from harm, consumer legal rights, and actions to ensure the marketplace is fair, open, and competitive.

The letter was signed by presidents and executive directors of Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Consumers League, National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

“The agenda we are providing today is a key starting point for our recommendations regarding the top issues for consumers,” the groups wrote.  “By working together and helping consumers make more informed decisions, we are building an influential consumer movement that will be a force for change.”

Under the heading “An Agenda to Ensure Consumers are Heard” the groups laid out nine major initiatives that the White House and Congress should adopt in the next Administration and in the new Congress:

  • Elevate the consumer voice in government by reinstating the key position of the White House Special Advisor on Consumer Affairs, holding regular meetings with consumer leaders, and convening a White House conference on the state of the consumer today.
  • Continue to work to make health care affordable, accessible, and safe through measures such as protecting funding for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid by reducing wasteful and unnecessary spending, not cutting services or shifting costs to consumers.
  • Continue to protect and expand upon the financial consumer protections secured in recent years, including the newly-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  • Ensure our food and products are safe by moving forward on still-pending food safety rules and implementing tougher standards for products, such as infant and toddler items.
  • Provide consumers with affordable and sustainable energy options by forcefully addressing climate change and promoting clean-energy initiatives.
  • Ensure that the Internet and other telecommunications services remain affordable and accessible, and consumers’ privacy is protected.
  • Support regulations that improve our quality of life and protect our health and safety, as well as oppose efforts to undercut the regulatory rulemaking process.
  • Improve consumer access to justice by reinstating legal rights.
  • Protect consumers by ensuring open, competitive and fair markets through tough enforcement of antitrust prohibitions on anticompetitive mergers and cracking down on monopolistic practices that lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers.

The letters were delivered to the White House and Senate Majority Leader Reid, Senate Republican Leader McConnell, Speaker of the House Boehner, and House Democratic Leader Pelosi.

For copies of the consumer groups’ letters and agenda, click here.

About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

Medication adherence challenge live today – National Consumers League

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By Rebecca Burkholder, NCL Vice President for Health Policy

Today marks the launch of the 2013 Medication Adherence Team Challenge, a month-long competitive outreach project to engage student pharmacists and other health care professional students and faculty in coming up with creative solutions to raise awareness about medication adherence as a critical public health issue. With nearly three out of four Americans not taking their medications as directed—which results in serious health consequences, especially for people with chronic diseases—it will take a team of health care professionals to moved the needle on adherence.

The Challenge is just one part of the National Consumers League’s Script Your Future campaign, a 3-year program to raise awareness of the importance of medication adherence. Launched in 2011, the campaign has more than 130 public and private stakeholder organizations, and provides tools to help patients and health care professionals better communicate about ways to improve medication adherence.

During the month of February the Challenge will engage interdisciplinary student teams from pharmacy, medicine, nursing, and other health professions to tackle the problem of poor adherence.  The teams will be implementing creative solutions and outreach in their communities to raise awareness and improve understanding about medication adherence, using Script Your Future materials.  At the end of the Challenge, select schools or colleges will be recognized nationally for their efforts to improve medication adherence.

“One of the best hopes we have for changing our culture of nonadherence is to train the next generation of health care professionals to be proactive about engaging their patients, and that starts in the classroom through the innovation brought forward by health professions faculty,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director.

The Challenge is returning to university campuses across the country after a successful first year of student innovation. To learn more about last year’s winners visit the Script Your Future Web site. The winners of Challenge 2013 will be announced later this spring.

This year’s Challenge is sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation, the American Medical Association (AMA), and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).

For more information on the Challenge visit the Challenge Community at https://syfadherencechallenge.ning.com/. Follow the challenge on Twitter at #SYFchallenge.  To learn more about the campaign, go to www.ScriptYourFuture.org.

‘Double Check, Don’t Double Up’ on acetaminophen this cold and flu season

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A bad cold or the flu can stop you in your tracks. Each year, Americans catch an estimated 1 billion colds, and up to 20 percent get the flu. And most of us turn to medicine to relieve symptoms; but it is important that you read the label on your medicines to check for acetaminophen and don’t double up.

After the first of the year, it seems like influenza (flu) season magically appeared, with a fierce intensity. Cases of flu are growing fast, and it is predicted that this season might be one of the worst in years.

More than 600 different over-the-counter and prescription medicines contain acetaminophen, including many for cough, cold and flu. It is the most common drug ingredient in America and can be in many prescription medicines taken by people who suffer from chronic health conditions such as fibromyalgia, arthritis, or back pain. It can also be found in many different types of over-the-counter medicines taken by people with temporary conditions such as fever or aches and pains. Acetaminophen is safe and effective when used as directed but there is a limit to how much you can take in one day. Taking more than directed is an overdose and can lead to liver damage.

The National Consumers League is a member of the Acetaminophen Awareness Coalition, which educates consumers and patients about how to use medicines containing acetaminophen appropriately and to help change behaviors that could lead to an unintentional acetaminophen overdose. The Acetaminophen Awareness Coalition’s Know Your Dose Campaign wants consumers to “double check” their medicine label so they don’t “double up” on medicines containing acetaminophen. If you take medicine to relieve cold or flu symptoms, check your medicine label to know if your medicine contains acetaminophen.

Know Your Dose is promoting four important steps for safe acetaminophen use:

  1. Check if your medicine contains acetaminophen
  2. Never take two medicines that contain acetaminophen at the same time
  3. Always read and follow the medicine label
  4. Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist if you have questions about dosing instructions or medicines containing acetaminophen.

If you are wondering how to actually read the label on your medication, check out this interactive Drug Facts Label. Here you can find out where to look to see if your medicine contains acetaminophen.

Learn more at www.KnowYourDose.org. Follow the Campaign on Twitter @KnowYourDose.

Script Your Future launches second annual student challenge to improve medication adherence – National Consumers League

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January 30, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, NCL, (412) 945-3242, carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—Today marks the launch of the 2013 Medication Adherence Team Challenge, a month-long competitive outreach project to engage student pharmacists and other health profession students, including medical and nursing students, and faculty in coming up with creative solutions to raise awareness about medication adherence as a critical public health issue. The Challenge, coordinated by the National Consumers League (NCL), America’s pioneer consumer group and the lead organization on the national Script Your Future campaign, is returning to university campuses across the country after a successful first year of student innovation.

With nearly three out of four Americans not taking their medications as directed—which results in serious health consequences, especially for people with chronic diseases—the National Consumers League and its partners in the Script Your Future campaign have committed to a 3-year program to raise awareness of the importance of medication adherence. The Challenge is part of the public awareness campaign launched in 2011 by NCL with more than 130 public and private stakeholder organizations.  This year’s Challenge is sponsored by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Foundation, the American Medical Association (AMA), and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).

“One of the best hopes we have for changing our culture of nonadherence is to train the next generation of health care professionals to be proactive about engaging their patients, and that starts in the classroom through the innovation brought forward by health professions faculty,” said Sally Greenberg, NCL Executive Director.

“The success of the first Script Your Future Adherence Challenge in October 2011 demonstrated the power of student pharmacists to reach out to their communities and engage patients and caregivers to improve health through better adherence,” said Dr. Lucinda L. Maine, Executive Vice President and CEO at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.  “This year’s Challenge will emphasize the interprofessional health care team and what each member of that team needs to do to move the needle on medication adherence.”

The Medication Adherence Team Challenge is a month-long outreach project that will be held in February 2013 to engage interdisciplinary student teams from pharmacy, medicine, nursing, and other health professions to tackle the problem of poor adherence.  The teams will be implementing creative solutions and outreach in their communities to raise awareness and improve understanding about medication adherence, using Script Your Future materials.  At the end of the Challenge, select schools or colleges will be recognized nationally for their efforts to improve medication adherence.

“Innovative medication adherence  initiatives, such as the Challenge, ultimately help raise patient awareness of the importance of taking medication as prescribed. This kind of initiative can help prevent potential adverse events and unnecessary hospitalizations, and ultimately help improve health outcomes,” said NACDS Foundation President Kathleen Jaeger.  “We look forward to seeing what this next generation of pharmacists and other health care professionals will create throughout this year’s Challenge.”

“Everyone wins when patients take their medication as prescribed to achieve optimal health outcomes,” said AMA President Jeremy A. Lazarus, M.D. “As a sponsor of the challenge, the AMA is pleased to work with other health care professionals to improve the health of our patients and avoid unnecessary health problems.”

“Greater medication adherence improves patients’ well-being and ultimately helps to drive down the costs of health care,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, MBA. “Independent community pharmacists are committed to proactively identifying solutions to improve patient adherence in their communities, and the Challenge is a terrific way to raise awareness among the next generation of pharmacists.”

In the inaugural year of the Challenge, more than 40,000 student pharmacists educated over 250,000 individuals nationwide during the month of October 2011 in this concerted public effort about the importance of medication adherence. Last year’s awardees, selected from 81 participating colleges and schools of pharmacy, included the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Harding University College of Pharmacy, Creighton University School of Pharmacy and Health Professions, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine School of Pharmacy, and University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy. To learn more about last year’s winners visit the Script Your Future website.

For more information on the Challenge visit the Challenge Community website at https://syfadherencechallenge.ning.com/. Follow the Challenge on Twitter using the hashtag #SYFchallenge and follow the campaign @IWillTakeMyMeds.

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About Script Your Future

Script Your Future is a campaign of the National Consumers League (NCL), a private, non-profit membership organization founded in 1899. NCL’s mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information about the Script Your Future campaign, visit www.ScriptYourFuture.org. For more information on NCL, please visit www.nclnet.org.

Good, bad, ugly of restaurant work featured at ‘Kitchen Ethical’ event – National Consumers League

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By Michell K. McIntyre, Director of NCL’s Special Project on Wage Theft

How would you like to work for a week and at the end of your pay period receive a voided check? Or have to choose between going to work with the flu or not being able to pay for groceries for your children? Or have to rely on the kindness of customers to cover 70 percent of your wages or know that management it taking a cut of your tips? For too many restaurant workers, that’s reality and is just the tip of the iceberg.

Earlier this month, NCL co-hosted Kitchen Ethical with Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United). Kitchen Ethical concentrated on the good, the bad and the ugly of the restaurant industry.  The event consisted of two panels: Success & the Ethical Employer – with two DC-based restaurant owners who believe and provide all their employees with paid sick days and employ ethical work practices; and Taking Off the Gloves – with restaurant workers sharing their stories of wage theft abuses, trying to survive on the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour and the real consequences of the lack of paid sick days.

As someone who has never worked in the restaurant industry, it’s hard to imagine working and not receiving a paycheck. As consumers, we have some power to affect change in a way that fines and regulations are not. Restaurants need customers in order to be successful, and — if customers demand change — then owners will have to listen.

Did you know that if you leave your tip on your credit card, your server might not receive their tip? Last year, celebrity chef and restaurant owner Mario Batali and his business partners were successfully sued for $5.25 million for a tip skimming scheme, a wage theft abuse. Unfortunately, this is not a one-time occurrence but is something that probably happens in a large portion of restaurants in the nation. But if we tip in cash, we can help eliminate this form of wage theft.

The lack of paid sick days not only puts workers in jeopardy but it also puts all consumers at risk. With the current flu epidemic at near record highs, the lack of paid sick days becomes a public health issue as well as a food safety issue. Who knows how safe or germ-free your food is if either your server or chef is sick?

For about 22 years, since 1991, the federal tipped minimum wage has been stuck at an appalling $2.13 an hour. According to NCL’s survey, released on the same day as Kitchen Ethical, 87 percent of consumers agree that it is time to raise the tipped minimum wage. Tipped workers are supposed to make up the remainder of their wage with tips from their customers. According to ROC-United’s 2011 Behind the Kitchen Door study, the median wage for restaurant workers is $8.90 an hour and based on a 40 hour week comes to just under the poverty line for a family of three. Any way you slice it, it’s not enough to survive on.

So what can we do? If there is only one thing you remember when eating out, let it be that as customers, we can affect change in this vital industry that desperately needs it.  Workers’ health and well-being not to mention livelihood are put in danger when unethical business practices are allowed to flourish. Public health and food safety suffer when business owners cut corners and deny their workers paid sick days and worker survival is at a great risk when the government prohibits poverty level wages and wage theft abuses are permitted. We, as voters, need to encourage our representatives to pass worker friendly legislation. As consumers, we need to demand that places we patronize treat their workers with the respect and dignity. No worker should have to work while sick, be paid a poverty wage, or worry that their employer is cheating them out of their hard-earned money.

Check out video clips from Kitchen Ethical.

Tracking food fraud – National Consumers League

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For decades, NCL has tracked trends about the Internet and telemarketing scams plaguing consumers through its Fraud Center and Fraud.org. But there’s another kind of fraud on the rise, and you’ll find it in your grocery store: food fraud.

While these types of fraud seem increasingly common, another, more invisible type of deception is also on the rise: food fraud. According to the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention, a critically important entity protecting food and drug purity, the amount of fake ingredients has increased by 60 percent in the last year. Counterfeit foods range from lemon juice purporting to be “100% pure” to cheap oils, which are dyed and flavored for the purpose, being passed off as pricey extra virgin olive oil.

The motive behind food fraud is obvious: economic gain. When ingredients and the products they are used in become pricey, there is much money to be made by unscrupulous producers. These activities hurt the honest businessmen in the industry but can also potentially harm the consumer. When a product has been adulterated and those ingredients are not listed on the label, consumers, particularly those with food allergies, no longer have the ability to necessarily avoid those ingredients that pose a threat. For example, cheaper oils, such as hazelnut, palm and corn oil may be treated so that they can pass for live oil. This can prove a grave threat to those who are allergic to these products.

So, what can consumers do? Unfortunately, there aren’t foolproof steps to protect yourself from all food fraud. Less pricey categories of fish, for example, are often mislabeled as more expensive species. Even trained chefs, who handle the food every day, can be fooled and only DNA tests can reveal the substitution taking place. While there’s nothing a consumer can do to ensure they never consume a fraudulent food, there are some common sense steps they can take to mitigate the risk.

Here are some tips for savvy consumers:

  • If a price seems too good to be true, you just might be on to something. There’s a reason that particular brand costs less than all the others, and there’s a chance that reason is adulteration.
  • Pick brands that have a vested interest in keeping you as a consumer. They may have more of an incentive to stay honest.
  • When possible, buy raw ingredients rather than processed ones. For example, buy your own coffee beans to grind rather than buying ground coffee.
  • Speak out to your member of Congress, as well as the federal agencies, like the FDA, who work on these issues, know that food fraud is an important issue.

Consumer group laments court ruling over constitutionality of Obama NLRB appointments – National Consumers League

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January 25, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, NCL Communications, (412) 945-3242, carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC–The National Consumers League (NCL) today expressed disappointment in the ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were unconstitutional. The Justice Department has indicated that the Administration will appeal the decision by three conservative judges to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“With only three current seats filled on the five-member NLRB, and two of those seats filled with members appointed under the questioned recess appointments, the Court is trying to shut down the cop on the beat charged with safeguarding employees’ rights to organize and addressing unfair labor practices,” said Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of NCL.

“We disagree with this decision, but note that all the appointees will remain in their jobs, not just at the NLRB but also Richard Cordray at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and will remain open for business. We urge the Senate to move quickly to confirm nominees to both the NLRB and the CFPB and allow these agencies to get on with carrying out the people’s business.”

About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.

NCL expresses concern over new Apple child labor revelations – National Consumers League

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January 25, 2013

Contact: Carol McKay, NCL Communications, (412) 945-3242, carolm@nclnet.org

Washington, DC—Apple Inc. announced today that its internal audits had found more than 106 underage employees at 11 different locations in its supply chain; it found another 70 “historical” cases of child labor. The company also said that it had terminated contracts with a Chinese supplier, Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhuou Electronics, which employed 74 workers under age 16. Auditors found eight facilities with “bonded labor,” cases in which workers were compelled to labor to pay off excessive recruiting fees.

The National Consumers League (NCL), the nation’s oldest consumer advocacy organization with a long history of working to reduce child labor in the U.S. and abroad, applauds the termination of supplier contracts that rely on the work of child labor. “After much criticism, it appears that Apple has finally stepped up auditing of its supply chain. We urge the company to continue on that path as aggressively as possible. With 1.5 million workers in 14 countries, the 106 children found working may be the tip of the iceberg,” said NCL Executive Director Sally Greenberg, who is a co-chair of the Child Labor Coalition, which represents 28 organizations, trying to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.

“Children should not be working in electronics manufacturing–with its accompanying dangers. They should be in school and allowed to realize their full potential,” said Greenberg. “Given Apple’s enormous profitability, it’s essential the company does everything in its power to stamp out child labor. Other electronics companies should take warning, and conduct rigorous audits of their supply chains.”

Apple suppliers in China, including the manufacturing behemoth FoxConn, have been criticized for poor working conditions and safety standards. Conditions were so bad, FoxConn felt compelled to install suicide nets to stop employees from plunging to their deaths off company rooftops. According to analyst Steven Millwood of TechAsia, Apple’s new  “supplier responsibility” report “details the same grim scene” for workers depicted in prior reports.

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About the National Consumers League

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America’s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit www.nclnet.org.