The Governance of Global Value Chains: Unresolved Human Rights, Environmental and Ethical Dilemmas in the Apple Supply Chain

The Disaggregation of the Global Value Chain
Apple and Foxconn: Supply Chain Issues
Apple and Foxconn's Response: Supplier Responsibility Programme

Abstract

Global value chains have significantly impacted developed and emerging economies.
Despite reform efforts, unresolved human rights, environmental, and ethical dilemmas persist.
The paper focuses on Apple Inc.'s role in the Asian global value chain.
Apple's financial success contrasts with its failure to resolve employment and environmental issues in component manufacturing plants.
The analysis addresses theoretical debates on global value chains and institutional failures that leave employees vulnerable and the environment neglected.

Introduction

Global value chains have driven production for goods and services, impacting economies worldwide.
Globalization of production through interconnected supply chains has brought employment and economic growth to developing economies, particularly in Asia.
It has also led to exploitative employment relations, environmental irresponsibility, and ethical dilemmas.
The transfer of manufacturing and services to emerging economies has resulted in declining wages, poorer conditions, and job insecurity in advanced countries.
This analysis examines how multinational corporations' development of global value chains has intensified accumulation and exploitation internationally.
Despite campaigns for workers' rights and corporate responsibility principles, abuses remain widespread, indicating institutional failure.
This failure is evident in the lack of collective bargaining rights, weak international employment frameworks, limited social movement impact, and government prioritization of economic growth over remedies for known problems.
The paper examines the unresolved dilemmas that Apple faces as an example of business ethics and integrity issues in global value chains.
The analysis is contextualized within the theorization of the global value chain.
The paper addresses key questions regarding Apple's commitment to social responsibility, institutional and stakeholder pressures, and the legitimacy of the company's responses to human rights, environmental, and ethical concerns.
Broader issues examined include sustainable supply chain management, disaggregation of global supply and value chains, and incidents in Apple's component suppliers' factories since 2006.
The paper concludes with a critical theoretical discussion of the Apple experience.

Apple Ine: An Iconic Corporation

Apple Inc. is the richest and most iconic corporation in the world.
In early 2015, Apple's brand was valued at $247$ billion, making it the most valuable brand.
Apple was the first U.S. corporation to reach a market capitalization of $700$ billion, surpassing Google and Microsoft combined.
In the final quarter of 2014, with the launch of the iPhone 6, Apple made profits of $18$ billion, the largest quarterly return of any U.S. corporation ever.
By 2015, Apple had accumulated liquid assets of $195.5$ billion, managed by its Nevada-based asset management corporation, Braeburn Capital.
This wealth rapidly accumulated following Steve Jobs' return in 1997.
Apple's brand and products were projected as the most advanced and elegant, transforming lifestyles through consumption.
Apple's 1997 advertising campaign, adapting IBM's slogan 'Think' to 'Think Different', reinforced this imagery.
Apple used images of Albert Einstein, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Miles Davis, Allen Ginsberg, Che Guevara, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama in its marketing efforts.
Each new Apple product launch is met with excitement and long queues, indicating strong brand loyalty.
However, increasing evidence emerged of tragic consequences of unresolved human rights, environmental, and ethical dilemmas in Apple's supply chain in China.
The beauty of Apple's design and products appears to rely on the suffering of young workers in electronic sweatshops where human rights, labor standards, environmental safety, and business integrity are routinely ignored.
Since these abuses were first brought to Apple's attention in 2006, the company has made continuous efforts to eradicate problems and enforce higher standards in its suppliers.
However, successive interventions to improve standards in suppliers' factories are often overwhelmed by the intensity of the production regimes being enforced.
Bleak working conditions exist throughout much of the electronics supply chain in Asia, including factories manufacturing products for Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba, and others.
As the market leader, Apple has a particular responsibility to ensure the integrity and responsibility of its value chain.

Global Value Chain Theory

Supply chain management involves controlling operations beyond core business activities.
The value chain encompasses all activities from conception to final disposal of a product or service.
Sustainable management of supply chains involves integrating social, environmental, and economic goals to improve long-term economic performance.
It also includes managing material and information flows and cooperation among companies while considering sustainable development and stakeholder requirements.
Sustainable supply chain management remains an uncertain concept with few absolutes, and the social and environmental issues can be interpreted broadly.
Existing literature describes initiatives dealing with diversity, human rights, safety, philanthropy, community, and the environment.
Marxian analysis traditionally views multinational corporations' international maneuvers as exploitation, but recent focus has shifted towards labor and workplace issues such as low wages and working conditions.
Companies like Apple, Google, Nike, GAP, Adidas, and Hewlett Packard have had to deal with governance gaps in global operations.
Private regulation in the form of codes of conduct has emerged to fill this gap.
Research suggests that corporate codes of conduct are often ineffective, as a code does not equal commitment.
There has been little progress in improving labor standards through private regulation, and codes are not producing hoped-for improvements in workplace conditions.
Monitoring remains important as cost or time pressures can lead to suppliers rigging numbers to obscure performance, even though codes of conduct can potentially lead to better sustainability performance along the supply chain.
Supply chain research is in its infancy, characterized by a relative absence of theoretically informed research and a large amount of descriptive empirical research.
Organizational theories (real options, internationalization, organizational economics, resource dependence, social network, and institutional theory) offer a basis for further theoretical supply chain research.
This paper builds on insights from institutional theory and is informed by stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory.
Institutional theory explains how formal and informal institutions influence decision-making in supply and value chains.
Stakeholder theory considers the influence of stakeholder groups and describes responsibilities of firms towards them.
Legitimacy theory describes motivations and reactions to institutional and stakeholder pressures.
Formal institutions include governments, regulatory bodies, firms, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), while informal institutions include social norms and values.
Both institutions exert normative pressures onto firms along the supply chain.
Public policy can result in companies having additional responsibilities towards employees or the environment.
Conversely, firms can be enticed to make supply chain decisions based on flexible labor or environmental laws.
Cultural norms concerning social standards and the environment also influence supply chain decisions.
Understanding and successfully managing pressures exerted by informal institutions are crucial in making appropriate sourcing decisions.
Organizations in the same area are likely to adopt comparable organizational forms and practices due to similar social pressures and stakeholder expectations.
Companies can adopt approaches of others in their sector or geographical regions, but mimicry provides no lasting solution.
Apple, as the market leader, is ideally equipped to lead by example.
Institutional theory can help explain sustainable supply chain management in a global context and is expected to become more prominent in related research.
Large multinational firms increasingly focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in supply chains following stakeholder pressure.
Stakeholders are defined as any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of an organization's objectives.
Companies have responsibilities towards a wide range of participants who contribute to the wealth generation of the company.
Stakeholder theory describes how firms can prioritize and manage interactions with various groups.
Stakeholder identification, engagement, demands, and potential for desirable outcomes become increasingly important and challenging due to heterogeneous stakeholder groups and conflicting interests.
Pressures are accompanied by varying degrees of legitimacy, urgency, and power, affecting the priority given to competing stakeholder claims.
Sustainable supply chain management's relative infancy adds to the difficulty of accomplishing this task.
Stakeholder theory manifests in descriptive and operational terms, yet stakeholder engagement is based on moral principles.
Institutional theory similarly has a values basis, but views differ on what the values should be, resulting in tensions and conflicts in the value chain.
These tensions involve contestation and collaboration among multiple actors, each with their own interests and agendas.
Companies facing supply and value chain pressures need to establish or reaffirm organizational legitimacy, a concept central in institutional theory.
Organizational legitimacy can also be attained through appropriate stakeholder management and engagement.
Institutional and stakeholder theories have foundations and may explain the endowment of organizational legitimacy.
The process by which values are determined and organizational legitimacy is achieved is dynamic, given the heterogeneous character of institutions and stakeholder groups.
A firm can have a specific motto or aim to contribute towards the "common good."
Google's corporate slogan "Don't be evil" is an example.
However, mottos are meaningless unless accompanied by positive actions.
The normative basis on which a company acts in society is under continuous pressure from institutions and stakeholders.
Legitimacy theory emphasizes processes by which organizational legitimacy is obtained or challenged.
It offers a conceptual tool to analyze institutional and stakeholder pressures, corporate responses, and the consequences for organizational legitimacy.
Legitimacy is defined as a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions.
Legitimacy offers companies the right to operate in line with institutional and stakeholder interests.
Companies seek to enhance their image to positively influence corporate social reputation, correlating with increased long-term firm performance.
Changing legitimizing factors are marked as a critical area of analysis in dynamic global supply chains.
Studies may focus on decision-making processes based on demands from institutions and stakeholders, and what company responses are best suited.
CSR reports and policies are a useful source of information to understand firm intentions and activities.
Firms benefit from reporting through improved corporate reputation among stakeholders.
Institutional and stakeholder pressures are major driving forces behind social, environmental, and economic responsibility in supply chains.
Concerns exist about the ways in which CSR disclosures compare with actual commitments and activities, with research finding discrepancies between actual practices of firms and their CSR publications.

The Disaggregation of the Global Value Chain

The interplay between global economic forces and local circumstances poses challenges for economic and employment security, and for business accountability, transparency, and integrity.
Multinational corporations benefit from outsourcing operations to low-wage countries, keeping production costs low and increasing profit margins.
Industries that have profited most from outsourcing include clothing, sports apparel, and toys.
Since the early 2000s, the electronics-manufacturing sector has been under scrutiny by labor rights activists, NGOs, and journalists.
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) outsource production of components to firms in low-wage countries providing Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) at a low cost.
The term 'electronics sweatshop' arose due to poor working conditions.
Apple sources most components from manufacturers in Asia, with 349 suppliers in China.
Without China, Apple wouldn't be the company it is today due to cheap labor and quick production.
Multinationals operating in developing nations can be seen as a sophisticated form of sweatshop exploitation.
Arguments for emancipatory effects of globalization on developing countries can be made if socioeconomic inequality is disregarded.
Apple externalizes production and the responsibility for the production process and workforce to EMS providers.
In its Supplier Code of Conduct, Apple requires suppliers to provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, act ethically, and use environmentally responsible practices.
Violations of the code may jeopardize the supplier's business relationship with Apple.
Component suppliers often cut corners in the production process to create a greater profit margin.
Apple's high demands regarding component quality lead suppliers to cut costs of the production process, resulting in lower compensation for workers and unsafe production facilities.
Apple shifts the burden of cost and production to EMS providers, who in turn make laborers carry the burden of cost-cutting through low wages and unsafe conditions.
Workers receive little protection from the government, independent trade unions are forbidden in China, and labor strikes are illegal.
This leads to labor flexibility that can threaten basic labor standards in developing countries.
Factory labor standards audits at Apple's EMS providers have uncovered violations of China's labor laws, but operations are generally found to be in line with formal regulations.
Apple and EMS companies have pledged to make changes to comply with China's labor laws when violations occur.
Chinese labor laws offer inadequate protection for workers, but the Chinese government may be apprehensive about enforcing stricter regulation due to concerns about weakening the Chinese economy.
Stakeholders such as workers and consumers play a modest role in global value chain dynamics compared to other institutions.
The Chinese labor force is becoming less docile, evident in uprisings at multinational factories.
Consumers of Apple products might exert greater pressure on Apple's corporate social responsibility, but long supply chains have geographically and morally dissociated them from production circumstances.
Many Apple consumers may be unaware of the circumstances in which their products are manufactured, but investigative journalism and NGOs provide opportunities for awareness.
It may have been imagined that human rights and labor practices would be significant matters for Apple's main demographic, cosmopolitan city dwellers and young people who are style conscious and well educated.
Western companies have learned how to respond to criticism of business practices and counter future criticisms by incorporating environmental, social, and governance themes into their marketing strategy.
Starbucks helps ensure that the consumer's conscience is absolved through their purchase by pledging to give a percentage of a product's cost to causes in the developing world.
Corporations portray themselves as socially responsible while silencing critics and appealing to consumers.
Consumer and worker power often need to be harnessed and mediated by third parties such as NGOs, organized labor, and interest groups to have any impact.
Greenpeace launched a campaign in 2006 challenging Apple to be clearer about its environmental policies, successfully mobilizing consumers to convince Apple to phase out the worst chemicals in its product range.
In 2012, Apple announced that the energy used to power its data centers would come solely from renewable sources by early 2013 and in 2015 Apple committed to an $850$ million investment in solar power.
Groups such as Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) and China Labor Watch continue to provide exploited workers with a voice.

Apple as a Monopsony

In 2010, Apple became the most valuable brand, with an 84% jump in brand value to $153.3$ billion.
By March 2015 Apple's revenue rose to $212.2$ billion.
In February 2015 Apple attained a market capitalization of $770$ billion, nearly double that of ExxonMobil, Google, and Microsoft.
Apple's large profit margins have contributed to liquid assets of $193.5$ billion.
Apple has more cash on hand compared to the cash balances of most industries in the United States combined.
Apple's competitive advantage is due to its domination of the advanced consumer electronics supply chain.
Apple controls every part of the supply chain from design to retail.
Apple gets big discounts on parts, manufacturing capacity, and air freight due to its volume and occasional ruthlessness.
Operations expertise is as big an asset for Apple as product innovation or marketing.
Tim Cook, now Apple CEO, was inspired by the book Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition is Reshaping Global Markets, which states that providing the most value for the least cost in the least amount of time is essential.
These new-generation competitors use flexible factories and operations to respond to their customers' needs rapidly by expanding variety and by increasing the rate of innovation".
The combination of rapidly rising gross revenues and remarkably high gross profit margins allowed Apple to accumulate a vast mountain of cash.
Apple has employed its hoard of tens of billions of dollars in cash to further dominate and control the electronics component supply chain in Asia and beyond.
EMS companies struggle to raise investment capital to cover costs in this new component technologies market due to the high cost of mass quantities building while margins are small and shrink as new products become commoditized.
Apple pays towards the cost of construction in exchange for exclusive rights to output for a period, with a discounted rate afterward allowing Apple access to new advanced components before competitors.
When competitors eventually secure access to these components, Apple continues to have access to the same parts at a lower cost due to the discounted rates it has negotiated, which may be subsidized by other electronics companies buying the parts from the same provider.
Apple has become not a monopoly (a single seller), but a monopsony - the one buyer who can control the market".
In 2011, Apple announced it was intending to invest $7.1$ billion on its supply chain in the next year, together with $2.4$ billion in pre-payments to key suppliers.
This wave of Apple cash ensures availability and low prices for Apple while limiting the options to competitors.
Apple ordered so many high-end drills to make the internal casing of the iPad 2 that other electronics companies waiting time for drills stretched for months.
Apple drives down supplier quotes, including recent estimates for materials, as well as labor costs when ABC Nightline found assembly workers at Foxconn - Apple's largest supplier - made $1.78$ an hour in 2012.
Apple seeks more control over the global electronics supply chain by binge hiring" hundreds of engineers and supply chain managers to accelerate the release of new products.
Apple contends that its business model is about more than just money by arguing that it offers an ethical production model with CEO Tim Cook saying the model goes from everything, from environmentally, to how you work with suppliers, with labor questions, to the carbon footprint of your products, to the things you choose to support, to the way you treat your employees.
Due to its status and size, Apple has the power to end chronic labor rights abuses in its supply chain making Ralph Nader says that Apple is in the best position of any company in the world because of its massive surplus profits to clean up its supply chain and set an example for the rest of the world".
A former Apple executive told that they've known about labor abuses in some factories for 4 years, and they're still going on because the system works for them and that suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn't have another choice.

Apple and Foxconn: Supply Chain Issues

Foxconn is one of the largest EMS companies employing approximately 1.6 million people in China and is Apple's principal supplier in China.
Both companies have experienced an unprecedented and sustained rapid escalation in their gross revenues, which shows that they are intricately linked.
Although Apple has extremely high profit margins and Foxconns are wafer thin both companies that they could make no claim to a shortage of funds with which to remedy the problems if they had resolved too.
Since 2006, Apple has been under fire for sourcing components from producers that have a poor reputation regarding employment conditions and practices.
In that year, the first criticisms were voiced in the media regarding the circumstances in which Apple's iPods were being produced.
It was alleged that production line workers were earning as little as US $50$ a month, while working 15 h a day.
One worker described the factory regime as like being in the army where they make you stand still for hours and if you move, you are punished by standing still for longer adding that you have to work overtime if you are told to and can only go back to the dormitories when your boss gives you permission implying a 15 hr workday.
One of the factories owned by Foxconn was described as harboring as many as 200,000 workers who inhabit onsite dormitories housing up to one-hundred people and are not open to outside visitors making around US $50$ a month for laboring 15 h a day.
Workers living in offsite dormitories were paid approximately $100$ a month, of which half has to be paid to their employer for housing and food.
The media report spread like a wildfire as international newspapers started to feature stories that carried the same allegations, while posts about Apple's 'sweatshops' started to appear on countless blogs, resulting in worldwide controversy in both online and offline media.
Apple was experiencing a public relations nightmare due to the maker of the world's most popular music player had been linked to appalling workplace conditions where workers were drilled in military style, lived in crowded dormitories and were forced to work long shifts for low pay.
The long-running Apple controversy took a dramatic turn for the worse in early 2010 when labor unrest shook up the south of China in the form of mass strikes and protests for wage increases and better working conditions.
Three-dozen strikes taking place at the factories of Foxconn, Honda, Hyundai and other multinationals catalyzed by increasing numbers of younger male workers, as well as an increased awareness of rights.
Protests received global media attention after a string of suicides and attempted suicides occurred at the factories of Foxconn including the body of the 19-year-old Ma Xiangqian who was found in front of his high-rise dormitory of the Foxconn plant in Guanlan worked 11-hour overnight shifts until he was demoted to cleaning toilets after a dispute with his supervisor and his wage slip showed that he worked 286 h in the month before he died, including 112 h of overtime, three times the legal limit in China.
Others tried to commit suicide but failed such as the 17-year-old Tian Yu who jumped from the fourth floor of her dormitory leaving her bedridden due to frustrations on receiving her wage taking a month worth of back of forth between Foxconn facility an hour away and eventually ended up getting nothing.
In 2010, thirteen Foxconn employees had taken their lives, with another four attempting suicide and surviving badly injured.
Incidents did not only occur at Foxconn, but also at other Apple suppliers during a strike in 2011 at Wintek where Chinese workers urged Apple to help resolve the incidence of chemical poisoning by hexyl hydride where the Authority in Suzhou reported in 2011 that 137 Wintek Employees had been poisoned by N-Hexane leading workers complaining about sore limbs, dizziness, headaches, extreme weakness and experiencing difficulties performing simple tasks.
In May 2011, an explosion at Foxconn in Chengdu caused three deaths and left many injured and later in December 2011, an explosion occurred at RiTeng Computer Accessory, a subsidiary plant of Pegatron Corp, another of Apple's Chinese suppliers, injuring 61 workers.
In a 2013 report by China Labor Watch highlighted 86 labor rights violations at Pegatron listing recruitment discrimination, women's rights violations, underage labor, contract violations, excessive working hours, insufficient wages, poor working conditions, poor living conditions, difficulty in taking leave, labor health and safety concerns, ineffective grievance channels and abuse by management.
In 2014, while assembly workers gear up to work overtime to build the new iPhone 6, one of Apple's key suppliers in the Philippines fired twenty-four workers that attempted to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.
A 2014 investigation by the BBC programme Panorama exposed ongoing controversies in Apple's supply chain like workers' indentities being seize by labour recruitment agencies, workers were sleeping in rooms with twelve people, suppliers conducted sham safety exams and created fake audit-trails, while the extremely exhausted workforce was drilled and intimidated eventually leading to the finding of children digging for tin in illegal mines.

Apple and Foxconn's Response: Supplier Responsibility Programme

Apple started a supplier responsibility program in 2006 by establishing its Supplier Code of Conduct later stating that it is committed to ensuring that working conditions and processes of manufacturing are safe and appropriate for the workers.
When violations of the Code of Conduct are encountered at any supplier Apple insists that the perpetrating company addresses the violation within 90 days or the relationship is terminated.
In 2006, over one-hundred Foxconn workers where interviewed of which eighty-three were assembly line workers finding one supplier in failed to meet the Supplier Code of Contact regarding the off campus dormitories and other suppliers were overly complex regarding the overtime pay structure even though the code allowed labor for up to 60 h a week so Foxconn promised to address these issues.
In June 2010, Steve Jobs saying Apple does one of the best jobs of understanding the working conditions in their supply chain while giving his thoughts on google and the iPad as well as addressing the Foxconn Suicides ensuring it is handled with due diligence.
CEO of Fouconn Terry Gou did not express concerns about the events until after the fifth suicide so the company ordered over three million square meters of mesh netting to be put up around its buildings, introduced 24-hour stand-by counseling teams, and increased wages.
The 2011 Supplier Responsibility Report claimed improvements to conditions with incidents like NHexane being addressed with health checkups and ventilation upgrades with further incidents being address as well.
Apple has addressed a range of other issues that it has encountered during factory audits, such as discrimination, wages and working hours, dormitories and dining, freedom of association, employee treatment, and environmental impacts.
Apple is also engaged in the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), an alliance of electronics firms whose aim is to improve working conditions and reduce environmental impact throughout the supply chain of the electronics sector.

Unresolved Dilemmas

It is clear that Apple is aware of the pitfalls of outsourcing manufacturing to low-wage countries therefore it is important to consider that independent organizations find after Apple and its suppliers has promised wrongdoings.
Organizations like the center from research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), China Labor Watch and SACOM have focused on labor practices whereas the Chinese Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) has studied pollution through apple's supply chain and its impacts on workers and the environment.
SOMO found that even though Apple stressed the importance of its Supplier Code of Conduct, the means by which compliance is verified remained opaque.
China Labor Watch concluded that employees were exposed to health hazards in the workplace, as well as being paid poorly and having to work long shifts and are skeptical about Apple's dealings with EMS companies.
In contrast, the FLA Published a report in 2012 on the progress made up by Apple's largest suppliers including worker participation and improvement on the union. FLA also shows steady progress on health, safety and other issues.
In a scathing review of this report, the Economic Policy Institute dismisses these conclusions and shows several misrepresentations conducted within it.
The BBC programme Panorama found that workers are left exhausted as Apple's promises are being broken on the factory floor.
The reporters found evidence of the contrary that payslips suggest that illegal working hours are commonplace, also with child labor violations being found at illegal mines.
Panorama informed Apple about its findings 6 weeks prior to a meeting at Apple's headquarters and after a 3 h meeting, Apple declined to to have any interviewee.
The 2015 Apple Supplier Responsibility 2015 Progress Report is the latest account of the policies and practices in the Apple supplier plants disclosing data on poor performance rather than concealed making it worrying that after 10 year things are not dramatically improving. These numbers could be seen as a testament to Apple's quest discovering the truth, given the years that these poor compliance rates have existed, what is concerning is that the improvements, if any, have taken so long.

Discussion

A corporation as wealthy as Apple employing up to a million people in conditions that can only be described as being harsh is not acceptable because it hides the exploitation from consumers by virtue of their distance with it.
Creating the world's best known and highest valued brand is the main way that organizational legitimacy is achieved, with Apple deploying the imagery of many progressive icons and civil society activists.
Social and environmental actions are reactive, which suggests that the values upon which Apple has been built and the fundamental organizational legitimacy of the company, is negotiated through a dynamic process with a specific configuration of institutions and stakeholders.
Concerns about human and employment rights are raised by NGOs, the media, organized labour and other interest groups act as relayers due to stakeholders not being able to express themselves themselves making Chinese Government apparently acknowledge any responsibility beyond encouraging investment and employment from overseas multinationals.
With Apple, the governance gaps/weaknesses occur where existing Chinese labor laws and lack of enforcement provide insufficient protection for workers even though Apple's private initiatives have attempted to fill this gap due to consumers' purchases being unaffected.
Emphasis on Apple has largely kept Foxconn out of the firing line saying Apple bears ultimate responsibility for the way the workers who make its products are treated.
Currently Apple shows no efforts of preventing human and employment rights abuses in their supply chain.
These organizations help create smoke Screen to obscure supply chain Exploitation due to the efforts from NGOs, the media, organised labor and other interest groups leading The safeguard of public Authority falls dramatically short, leaving workers with few influential avenues to pursue remedies.
By bringing institutions and stakeholders together in a forum that allows them to engage in debate and collaborate to achieve reforms would fix many of the Apple and Foxconn deficiencies.

Conclusion

Apple's supply chain - including the company itself - has become trapped in a minimal reform and frequent denial pattern so campaigns and institutions must have better direction and coordination to change it.
Multistakeholder initiatives voicing all stakeholder concerns could dramatically improve the lack of change done.