A new agency, announced yesterday by President Obama, to crack down on unfair trade practices by countries such as China, is “a step in the right direction,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.

As we've written here, Apple's record-breaking success in selling iPhones, iPads and iPods have come at a terrible cost.Take a minute to sign our petition to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. Tell him to ensure that people integral to Apple’s success—workers who manufacture Apple’s  electronics—are treated fairly.

Despite some positive signs of change in Burma, forced labor is still widely practiced, trade unions are illegal and hundreds of political prisoners remain in jail. The AFL-CIO agrees with the ITUC that the time is not ripe for a major revision of sanctions, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton solidifying this position.

Outraged at the inhumane treatment of workers in China who make iPads, iPhones and other Apple products, protesters visited a half-dozen Apple stores around the world yesterday to deliver petitions calling for reforms in the working conditions at factories run by Apple’s suppliers, accroding to Democracy Now!

More horrors out now from the Chinese serf-labor system involved in creating Apple products like iPads and iPhones. It turns out many of the workers churning out millions of the devices in unendurable conditions at Foxconn and other factories are also forced laborers as young as 16.

More than 1.6 million American jobs in the nation’s auto supply chain are at risk unless China’s illegal trade practices are curtailed, according to three new reports released today. In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said:

Hours after Apple released its first quarter earnings, which showed a mind-blowing 44.7 percent profit, The New York Times published another in a series of articles illustrating some of the reasons behind Apple’s profit margin. Describing the conditions in which Chinese workers assemble iPhones, iPads and a panoply of Apple products, the report states:

A much-discussed report in the Sunday New York Times on why iPhones are made in China highlights the transition of Apple guru Steve Jobs who, a few years after Apple began building the Macintosh in 1983, bragged it was “a machine that is made in America.” Today, millions of Apple products like iPhones, iPads and Kindles are made in China sweatshops like Foxconn.

The horror stories out of China’s mega-sweatshop, Foxconn, just get worse and worse. Foxconn is the employer of hundreds of thousands of workers who make iPhones and other cool gadgets in working conditions so odious the company dorms where they live are now swathed in nets to prevent suicides.

The horror stories out of China’s mega-sweatshop, Foxconn, just get worse and worse. Foxconn is the employer of hundreds of thousands of workers who make iPhones and other cool gadgets in working conditions so odious the company dorms where they live are now swathed in nets to prevent suicides.