Can Apple make a more ethical iPhone?

Global manufacturing — from computers and electronic devices to cars and garments — has been a target of anti-sweatshop activists for years. In 1996, Kathie Lee Gifford’s teary apology after activists discovered Honduran sweatshops making her line of clothing for Wal-Marthelped spearhead the anti-sweatshop movement. Lawsuits against the Gap, Levi Strauss, Target, J.C. Penney and other retailers also helped raise awareness. In the mid- to late ’90s, protests erupted on college campuses, and groups such as No Sweat Apparel and Behind the Label were born.

The industry’s response was for the brands to begin monitoring their own factories. Beyond the obvious conflict of interest that arises when a corporation polices itself, there are other issues at play. Factories often have contracts with many companies, all of which now have their own codes of conduct — some more enforced than others. Take overtime, for example. If the Gap allows up to 20 hours a week of overtime, but the local government allows only 10 — as was the case several years ago in Shenzhen, China — whose mandate should be followed? If the local minimum age for workers is 15, but one brand requires workers to be 16 and another brand 18, whose law prevails?

And companies soon realized that they could not effectively monitor their factories alone. Enter the third-party auditors, including Apple’s new partner, the FLA. I’ve seen many auditors, including Social Accountability International and Verite, do very good work, even in China. But, hypothetically speaking, if a factory makes garments for the Gap and the Gap contracts with Verite, and that same factory also makes garments for Eileen Fisher and Eileen Fisher contracts with Social Accountability International, the factory will be ensnared in a constant tug of war among these various international players.

What we have is an industry where factories are monitored incessantly; where the quality and efficacy of monitoring varies wildly; where local laws, if they exist, are often ignored in favor of international buyers; and where factories pay enormous sums to a variety of monitoring groups just to be in the international game.

Monitoring, when done effectively, takes a lot of time, from two days to a week. It’s not simply a matter of walking around a factory checking ventilation systems, light bulbs and fire exits; it’s painstakingly comparing export records with buyers’ contracts and calendars (to make sure that work is not happening on a Sunday, say) and sometimes even weather reports. If multiple groups are auditing a factory annually, it can spend weeks out of each season just working with them. One factory I visited in China had an entire department devoted solely to working with the many monitors who came through.