─ Chinese Labor Practices Sour Apple Consumers ─

Apple’s profit margins have widened in recent years to over 30 percent, while Foxconn’s have narrowed to around 1.5 percent.

To make any real change, Apple will eventually have to take a hit to its profitability. Rotating tasks among workers might help prevent repetitive motion injuries, for example, but it will rake up costs in training and logistics.

But Needleman says many consumers might be willing to pay more for a product that doesn’t come at the expense of human lives and livelihoods.

“Consumers who get up in arms about something and say, ‘hey, I’ll pay $50.00 more for an iPhone that isn’t breaking the back of somebody,” he says. “That could make a difference.”

And some of them are trying to do just that. A petition on Change.org calls on Apple to release a worker protection strategy and go public with independent reports about factory conditions. It was posted on Jan.31, and it’s already gotten 181,026 people to sign.