Fair phones in demand

Thousands of signatories joined makeITfair in its call towards mobile phone companies to pay greater attention to social standards in their supply chains.

"This campaign, organised by makeITfair, continued to collect more than 7,800 signatures calling for better labour standards and improved implementation of these in supplier countries such as China. This demonstrates consumers awareness about the source of their mobile phones and shows that there is a demand for fair phones,” says Päivi Pöyhönen from makeITfair partner FinnWatch. The majority of signatures are being handed over to Nokia in Helsinki, the largest mobile phone producer of the world. A significant part of the signatures were directed to Nokia in a specific petition.

More than half of all mobile phones in use worldwide are produced in China. Migrant workers work up to 12 hours a day, earning only around 40 Euro cents an hour, which is not enough to cover their basic living expenses.

In May 2009, makeITfair already handed over signatures of more than 8,000 consumers who were calling for fair labour standards in the mobile phone production. So far, Apple and Motorola were the only companies to react and comment on their corporate social responsibility commitment. However, their current activities are not sufficient to tackle the problems of poor working conditions and environmental damage. “All mobile phone companies have to become more active and in particular focus on implementation of their codes of conduct”, says Cornelia Heydenreich from makeITfair partner Germanwatch.

During the next years, makeITfair will continue its efforts to call for better working conditions for workers producing electronics products as well as for social responsible mining of minerals for mobile phones and computers and a responsible recycling of IT gadgets.

makeITfair receives continuous support from young people around Europe. In order to link up with young people and to gather their campaigning experiences, makeITfair launches a youthblog today. It can be found at www.makeitfair.org/youthblog(opens in new window)