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Like many large technology companies, Apple Inc. has limited recognition of worker organizations. Apple does not recognize any trade unions in the United States, while it does recognize some unions and works councils in Europe, and a union in Japan. The majority of industrial and labor disputes involving Apple occur indirectly through its suppliers and contractors, notably Foxconn plants in China.

Industrial composition

Apple is one of the most valuable corporations in the world, hitting a trillion dollar capital valuation in 2018, and becoming the first American company to reach a two trillion dollar valuation in 2020. Since the 1980s, Apple, like other Silicon Valley companies, shifted assembly operations and other manufacturing services from the United States to countries with lower labor and overhead costs and flexible scaling, particularly China. Apple directly employs 150,000 workers, who work across 500 Apple stores globally, while relying on a larger outsourced workforce for manufacturing. One Foxconn factory nicknamed "iPhone city" located in Zhengzhou, alone employs 350,000 Chinese workers to exclusively work on the iPhone.

As of 2021, Apple uses hardware components from 43 different countries. The majority of assembling is done by Taiwanese original design manufacturer firms Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron and Compal Electronics in factories primarily located inside China, but also Brazil, and India.

Brazil

In contrast to China, at the start of the 2010s workers in Brazil had higher wages, stronger labour protection and nearly double the minimum wage. In 2012, by the time Foxconn opened a second Brazilian factory located in Jundiaí that focused exclusively on Apple products, the local IndustriALL affiliate Brazilian Metalworkers Union (Template:Lang-pt-BR; CNTM) already had experience organizing Foxconn workers at the first non-Apple plant. After a 5-day strike in 2014 involving 3,700 workers, Foxconn made a collective agreement with the Metalworkers Union to match their salaries with the higher paid non-Apple contracted Foxconn workers. A prior strike happened in February 2013 for similar demands.

China

Foxconn Trade Union

In the summer of 2006, the British, Chinese and US press reported poor working conditions in an iPod factory operated by Foxconn. Apple promised to investigate, while Foxconn responded by suing two of the mainland journalists involved. Foxconn later dropped the lawsuit. In response to media pressure and local interventions by Shenzhen municipal state officials, Foxconn promised to form a union. However, nothing materialized as of November 2006. On the last day of that year, the Shenzhen branch of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions took the unusual step of establishing Foxconn's first union, initially with 118 members out of the more than 240,000 workers at the Longhua Science and Technology Park facility. In March 2007, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou's special personal assistant, Cheng Peng, was elected as its first chairwoman. Despite being the largest 'unionized' company in the world, with over 90% of Foxconn's 1.4 million workforce registered; the Foxconn Federation of Labour Unions (Chinese: 富士康科技集团工会联合会), more commonly known as Foxconn Trade Union (Chinese: 富士康工会) is by and large a company union dominated by management rather than workers.

Foxconn again made global headlines in 2010, when over a dozen workers committed suicide due to strenuous working conditions. Apple responded by bringing in the Fair Labour Association, a US based NGO as external auditor from 2012 to 2016. One of the Association's findings was that the Foxconn Trade Union failed to adequately represent workers. The Economic Policy Institute criticized the FLA report for giving Apple and Foxconn 'undue' credit, despite ongoing issues including forced overtime and the continued use of underage labour. Foxconn promised in 2013 with the help of Fair Labour Association to prepare genuine representative elections through an anonymous voting process to elect up to 18,000 new union committees.

In a 2017 Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) report, Jenny Chan criticized the limited worker participation inside the Foxconn Trade Union and the lack of awareness or involvement of workers in the first democratic union elections held in early 2015.

France

Ahead of the iPhone 5 debut in 2012, employees in French Apple retail stores voted to go on strike after collective bargaining negotiations stalled. The main union involved Solidaires (SUD) represents 25% of the 1,000 French employees.

Germany

In 2011, Apple employed 50,000 workers worldwide, 30,000 of them in flagship Apple stores. In February 2012, the first works council was set up in the Munich Apple retail store. In an interview with Manager Magazin, a Ver.di union representative cited excessive overtime, high noise level and insufficient health measures as motivating factors for workers to form a works council, as well as a lack of collective agreements. In December, retail workers at the Frankfurt Apple store elected a works council, making a "General Works Council" feasible.

Italy

Ahead of the iPhone 4S launch, workers in the Rome Apple retail store went on strike, featuring the slogan "Strike Different", a wordplay on Apple's "Think Different". Strike demands included higher monthly bonus schemes of US$200, limiting employee surveillance and increasing staffing.

Japan

On December 18, 2014, retail workers of Apple Japan announced a union affiliated with Tozen using the slogan "Work Different", a wordplay on Apple's "Think Different". This union is still active today.

United States

Apple Retail Workers Union

In May 2011, exactly one decade after the first Apple store opened, Cory Moll launched the Apple Retail Workers Union in San Francisco, citing compensation, pay, benefits and hiring processes as motivations. In November, Apple launched a private training for managers on how to "manage worker unions". A source contacted CNET News to clarify that the training was not related to retail employees. In April 2013, according to a tweet Moll posted, he left the company on his own accord.

#AppleToo

Apple employees launched a website called AppleToo on August 23, 2021, with a tag line "It's time to Think Different" a play on Apple's slogan "Think Different". #AppleToo is a reference to the #MeToo movement and the sharing of personal stories — in the case of Apple, about discrimination by human resources and management. The website started publishing some of the personal stories of past and current Apple workers including contractors. According to Cher Scarlett, a former Apple security engineer who led organizing the initiative, they have received nearly 500 reports from workers.

Further reading

• Chan, Jenny; Selden, Mark; Pun, Ngai (2020). Dying for an iPhone : Apple, Foxconn, and the lives of China's workers. ISBN 978-1-64259-204-7. OCLC 1157440504.

See also

• Amazon worker organization
• IBM worker organization
• Google worker organization
• Criticisms of Apple Inc.

Notes

1. Taiwanese based Hon Hai Production is more commonly known as Foxconn
2. Sources use conflicting pronouns/titles for Peng. Chen Peng is a woman according to the Financial Times and researcher Jenny Chan. She also goes by Peggy in the English language.

References

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External

• Official website: AppleToo
• Official website: Foxconn Trade Union (in Chinese)

v t e Foxconn
People	Terry Gou
Subsidiaries	Smart Technologies Belkin Industrial Internet InnoLux Corporation Sharp Corporation
Products	EnTourage eDGe Ultra ATX
Plants	Longhua Science and Technology Park Wisconn Valley Science and Technology Park Zhengzhou Technology Park
Incidents	2011 Chengdu Foxconn explosion Foxconn suicides Foxconn union

• Apple Inc.
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• Labor relations in China
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• Foxconn
• Trade unions by company