Eco friendly apple, best worker conditions ever OR so they say!

1. Eco friendly apple, best worker conditions ever OR so they say! My Creative Activism Challenge Three

2. So what has apple done? • Apple the most well known, successful, powerful, challenging, inspirational, worldwide, futuristic, adapting business that will never change but some things it’s going to have to! • Apple’s foxconn’s factory's needs a change, the situation needs a lot of improving. The Foxconn factory's are where all of the apple products are produced. It is here, that the conditions have been noted as ‘disgraceful’. • The Chinese workers work and live in the same factory. The work 14 hour shift’s, stand all shift and are supposed to get two days off a week. This apparently does not happen at all. • The foxconn’s factory do not have anybody come and visit the inside of the factory. • There has been 14 suicides. • This became apparent in 2010 and now in 2012 nothing has changed!

3. Foxconn factory where the problem started! • Foxconn has always been known as the factory that producers the worldwide famous Apple products. It has always had positive feedback until the suicides came world news and it was here when foxconn factory's and Apple started to get negative press! It then became apparent, that the suicides were all linked to the fact that the working conditions were diabolical. The workers live and work under one roof, which then came apparent as there was a worker who described the hours he worked and getting back to his ‘dormitory’ late at night. It also came apparent that they get a big sum of money before they start work and then have to deal with whatever get’s thrown at them because they have already been paid. • Since all of the negative feedback, Foxconn factory acclaimed to have had the CEO of Apple to come visit the factory and put up safety nets, so nobody can commit suicide's. They have also had the workers sign a pledge to say they will not commit suicide.

4. Other issue’s to do with Apple • Apple has not only had problem with the way it treats the workers and the conditions. There is another issue which has been brought up. Apple has advertised that all of its products are eco friendly, yet a lot of people think differently. • In Manhattan – 5th Avenue, the underground apple store is a little different to the normal Apple store. It is underground covered in a glass box, you go through the box and down stairs to find the store. A activist felt very strongly about the eco friendly issues that made a point of spending time pointing a green light on to the glass box to show the eco friendly wasn’t what it seems! • The eco friendly issue has become more apparent, I watched a video done by Duke College students in the USA. Here they made a video, asking the CEO to come and visit there campus to listen to them about the certain products materials need changing. • You can see here, there a lot of different issue’s that come with the Apple products and from doing this case study I have learnt that not everyone is completely happy with the way that Apple is run, how it treats other company's and workers and how it is promoting something that may not be completely accurate.

5. The Solution! • In our case study we were asked to use our media skills to express the issue’s. Our group decided to use the apple products as it would make more of an effect. We also thought using children to advertise would give the adverts, images and video’s much more of an impact. We had a lot of different example’s, including a child playing with an apple product such as Ipad and Iphone. When the child plays with the apple product green smoke comes out of it, just like a smoke bomb does – this would give the affect that the products aren’t safe and not eco-friendly. • I really liked the different images and adverts used to show the suicide problems within the foxconn factory. They had images of the trademark iPod logo, with a coloured background but instead of the girl dancing they had a man being hung with a wire and a iPod attached to it. Something like that would be really affective and really get the point across. • I think it is really important, that you make an affective campaign to get your point across. The campaign's that affect and really make an impact are the ones that are truly great. The ones that are clever, make a point, don’t completely offend but get what you are trying to say in a simple image, video or line.