[Robotbeat]

I found this is very insightful thread on this lawsuit and context behind it: https://mobile.twitter.com/enn_nafnlaus/status/1206896495993...

0) lawyers suing have questionable history

BUT 1) Child labor in Africa is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and just about anything sourced from Africa will have this problem.

2) The Kamoto mine in question is a copper mine. Cobalt is a secondary product. (One could just about as legitimately call attention to products using copper.)

3) Tesla is targeted in the lawsuit but does not use Congolese cobalt.

4) Possible exception to this is some possible future Tesla cells could come from LGChem which gets some of its lithium from Umicore. However, LGChem is the primary supplier of cells for GM and several other EV producers... Yet they are not named in this lawsuit.

5) Kamoto is a modern industrial mine. Artisanal mines are where child labor is used. Unskilled child labor is of dubious use in highly mechanized industrial mining sites.

6) However, Kamoto has had problems with pirate artisanal mines on its property and has tried to get the Congolese army to help keep them out. (So I guess the lawsuit would be that Kamoto has not been able to keep out illegal artisanal mines from its property?)

7) Regardless of all these points, we NEED to stop this dangerous child labor in Africa, and it's probably a good thing that this sort of thing is drawing attention to the issue.

(Note, I'm mentioning Tesla here because I'm most familiar with it and it's also mentioned most in the thread, but it's possible similar arguments apply to other companies listed: It seems they're listed because they're well-known, large tech companies, not necessarily due to amount of cobalt use or even use of unethical cobalt at all.)

[dmix]

The fact they'd even need to have to try to get the Congolese army to enforce what happens on their own mine property says a lot about the problem.

It's largely just a security problem. But I'm sure the activists don't want violent military guys pushing off the pirate mines.

The other question is the pipelines that purchase from the 'artisanal' mines. Those people could be targeted and better regulated.

But as we've seen in the diamond and gold industries that's been a very hard thing to do in African countries without stable governments or strong incentives to stop them.

If the goal is to actually stop it and not some vindictive pursuit of western companies who people want to take all of the blame, then upping security and oversight of the mines with financial goals and on-sight oversight teams to measure progress. Plus some financial incentives to the various players to reports the dangerous supply lines which are using kids, so it's not putting a poor person between having something and total poverty out for some moral purpose which they will disregard.

[Robotbeat]

I think stable government and general development (education, economic) is really the ultimate solution to this and everything else will either be largely ineffective or have significant downsides.

There needs to be some international/African Union pressure to stop some of the proxy warfare going on in central Africa and some way to ensure stability in Congo.

[lsllc]

This is what trade tariffs should be used for -- to level the playing field to prevent the global arbitrage of labor based on unfair or shady practices.

If the DRC is going to allow (or ignore) child labor for Cobalt mining, then there should be tariffs that would make it so expensive that it would make Australian or Canadian Cobalt mines profitable (where we know the workers are fairly compensated and can work in safe environments).

If India is going to look the other way for poor labor practices in ship breaking then there should be a big tariff on the recycled steel that drives that industry. Making properly managed, safe ship breaking in well regulated countries competitive.

If China wants to allow heavy industrial production with no environmental protections, then there should be tariffs on that to make countries that do regulate industrial pollution competitive.

When these countries finally clean up their labor practices and make things safe and equitable for their workers and the environment, then the tariffs go away.

Companies should NOT be able to exploit repression, bullying unsafe practices, child labor or pollution by proxy etc. in order to reduce their costs by moving production to such a country. Trade tariffs, when wielded honestly and effectively should be a tool to prevent that.

[microtherion]

Thanks for the extra info and the nuanced view! I agree that this kind of child labor should be stopped. In general, I also think that activist pressure, even if it is sometimes wrong about the specifics, is helpful to bring about positive change.

Apple has made a lot of progress on environmental and supplier labor issues over the last couple of years. And I'm pretty sure that getting picketed by activists and other pressure tactics played some role in that.

https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2... https://images.apple.com/environment/pdf/Apple_Environmental...