This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple and other major tech companies don’t have to compensate victims of forced child labor that provided cobalt for the lithium-ion batteries used in many electronic devices, a US appeals court ruled.
The lawsuit filed by former miners from the Democratic Republic of the Congo alleged that Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla violated a trafficking law that makes it illegal to participate in a “venture” that engages in forced labor.
“The plaintiffs allege the technology companies participated in a venture with their cobalt suppliers by purchasing the metal through the global supply chain,” the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit noted in its ruling issued yesterday.
“Purchasing an unspecified amount of cobalt through the global supply chain is not ‘participation in a venture’ within the meaning of the TVPRA [Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008],” the ruling said.
The miners were “recruited as children to engage in dangerous mining operations and suffered tunnel collapses, falls, and other accidents that left them paralyzed, disfigured, or worse,” the ruling said.
They sought financial damages, injunctive relief, and other remedies on behalf of themselves and “a class of similarly situated child miners in the DRC.”
The original article contains 687 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Ok, so Apple doesn’t owe them because they were getting cobalt from the global supply chain. But those children definitely deserve compensation, I suppose from the mine owners.
“Purchasing an unspecified amount of cobalt through the global supply chain is not ‘participation in a venture’ within the meaning of the TVPRA [Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008],” the ruling said.
Nah, those companies knew and deliberately tried to hide that they knew. The global supply chain is a cover your ass way of saying it. Just like with coffee, cocoa and other fair trade items, they could set up a system to cover it. They certainly have enough money to do that.
John Smith - Imperialism in the 21st century is an excellent book on this, but this article on the GDP illusion, mainly about three global commodities, the smartphone, t-shirt, and, coffee, is a great introduction.
I don’t care if they make a profit from the work? They are using these products in their products, they have an ethical responsibility to choose companies that treat their employees well or find another company to purchase from. Companies that make that much money from companies that use slave labor should be not normal or accepted. The end.
Apple does not own the Chinese, Malaysian, and other production facilities that manufacture and assemble its products. In contrast to the in-house, foreign direct-investment relationship that used to typify transnational corporations, no annual flow of repatriated profits is generated by Apple’s “arm’s length” suppliers. Standard interpretation of economic statistics, all of which record the results of transactions in the market place, assumes that the slice of the iPhone’s final selling price captured by each U.S. or Chinese firm is identical to the value added each supposedly contributed. They reveal no sign of any cross-border profit flows or value transfers affecting the distribution of profits to Apple and its various suppliers. The only part of Apple’s profits that appear to originate in China are those resulting from the sale of its products in that country.
It’s messed up how the court and companies benefiting from this basically said, " oh shucks, you guys sued the wrong people. Try again."
Take that pesky kids!
