Given the pretty reliable maxim that if you turn over most stones you’ll find something creepy underneath, I thought I’d have a look at the bits that make up my gadget and see if I can find out a little more about they impact they’ve had around the world.

So here are my first two snippets of stone lifting so far…

Assembly, screen, memory etc - Samsung

Flash microcontrroller – Atmel

Atmel are a microcontroller manufacturer who produce the MXT540E touch screen controller used in the Galaxy Note. They have a FAB (semiconductor fabrication facility) in Colorado Springs, USA, but have in recent years closed three other FABs.

This includes the Dec ’11 closedown of their FAB in Rousset, France, which was controversial and involved a protracted strike by the workforce. It’s alleged that the final terms didn’t match up to an agreement signed at the beginning of the process with the workforce and their union the CFDT.

From what Google can translate for me, the guarantees on redundancy and short time working pay were ultimately not upheld, and the company fell back onto legal minimums instead.

I can’t tell which FAB the Galaxy Note controllers were produced in, and I guess not France as they mightn’t make a new product in a factory they knew they were most likely closing since 2009.

Of course companies are always changing, so closing a particular factory is something that sometimes just has to happen if it can’t be made to work out for the business, but it seems this one is a little fishy.

Atmel posted record Microcontroller revenue of $1,114 Million in 2011, Up 25% on the previous year, and the firm appears on lots of stocks-to-watch lists, so it looks like they could have afforded to do much better by its workforce when the firm decided to close.

As you now can’t listen to it, the show centred on Mike’s trip to China, to investigate working conditions at Foxconn, the electronics megacorp that makes iPhones, Nokias, Dells, you name it… Mike had worked up his experiences in China into one of his monologue performances, a short one-man theatre/comedy routine, exploring the connections between how we feel about our shiny tech gewgaws, and the company ethos and practical manufacture details behind them.

It turns out Mike embellished a number of the details of his trip. He didn’t actually meet a number of the people he wrote about (some were based on case studies of people in a totally different city), and invented more dramatic dialogue from poetic licence. Prior to his This American Life airing, most people probably wouldn’t have been surprised by this, unless they were the type who was rather late finding out about Santa.

He’s a dramatist, producing a story to make a compelling theatrical experience. Reading Mike’s fantastic 21 Dog Years, a geek humour chronicle of his time as a customer services early hire at Amazon.com, I didn’t really expect a lot of that stuff to have happened exactly as it did, or that Mike hadn’t woven in anecdotes from others, or general Amazon folklore.

Journalism can’t be “truthy” (and it’s right for TAL to clarify), but drama certainly can, and needs to if it’s to work. You can argue that polemical drama like Mike’s latest sits uncomfortably somewhere in between the two. But even so, I don’t think Mike now deserves to be presented as a cross between Jayson Blair and Kony2012, and used by Foxconn and Apple to try to duck responsibility on a technicality.

As he explains on his site, his mistake was in mixing up his dramatic work with This American Life’s high integrity journalism, and not thinking about where this was taking him, ultimately compromising both sides.

So Mike made a mistake on this occasion, but I for one am willing to cut him some slack. What he reports didn’t all happen to him, but look at the genuine academic research and journalism coming out of the issue, and you’ll find this stuff is happening, and happening in spades, just that it’s generally being talked about by people with less of a gift and opportunity for presentation than Mike.

I think as campaigners, we have a lot to thank Mike Daisey for, and unceremoniously dumping on him as a problem best publicly jettisoned, without giving his side of the story a link, doesn’t really do him his deserts. He’s been the previously missing link that over the last year has moved the academic research on to connect more widely, and enable some great investigative journalism. And of course, he’s done this by using his considerable talents as a comedian and playwright, rather than by retraining as a journalist.

I like the fact he’s now weaving the latest twists in the story into his show. It might be strange to say that it’s my impression he’s a very honest guy, given the current furore, but on the one occasion I’ve met him, whilst helping with publicity for a 21 Dog Years gig he was doing in London, that’s exactly how he came across to me.

Sure, we can be annoyed at his mistake in muddying the water, but as Mike says himself, this really isn’t the story – There’s a story there that Mike’s helped bring out to the world, and that’s more than big enough already.

The resulting show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”, deals with his Apple fandom (well, no-one’s perfect…) and its wider world implications. I’ve not seen the show sadly (he doesn’t appear this side of the pond too often), but I’ve been fascinated to listen to half of it, via a recent episode of the US radio show This American Life.

It’s well worth checking out, as Daisey is always a compelling presenter, and host Ira Glass mixes up bits of his monologue with interview snippets with Mike and others, including SACOM’s Debby Chan Sze Wan, to investigate Mike’s claims more fully.

This is a really personally brave venture from Daisey, and he tells a really compelling story. I met him briefly around the TUC event, and was struck by his openness and honesty in pretty much everything, and that’s a trait that comes through here in how he reacts to what Chinese electronics workers and trades unionists tell him on his trip, and how he reconciles this with his own technology(/Apple) obsession. Here’s hoping he brings it on tour to the UK, so we can catch the rest of it (I’m guessing most of the show’s laughs probably come in the part not included here!).

And in other news (from Good Electronics), there’s a glimmer of light that Mike’s work and the tireless activism of SACOM and many others could be starting to pay off. Apple have announced they’ve joined the Fair Labor Association (something sort of akin to a US ‘lite’ version of our own Ethical Trading Initiative),the first electronics firm to do so.

This could be fantastic news as it’s a concrete first step, enrolling Apple in a monitoring and certification programme that ties them to achieving standards in inspections within two years. However, campaigners will need to keep up the pressure for a second step, as there’s a perception that unless it’s done with real commitment, the FLA can often be used by bad firms as something of a shield against calls for real reform.

The scheme doesn’t engage meaningfully with independent trade unions for a more sustainable way of getting issues addressed in a work place. Unless this happens, as Mike Daisey found out in Shenzhen, it’s none too hard for companies with prior warning to pass a one-off inspection every few years and yet still have massive rights infringements despite any number of shiny awards.

If Apple are only after a badge that they can wave around noisily, to hope all those nasty campaigners, unions and investigative journalists go away and let business go on 95% as usual, then this is how they’d do it.

Of course if they’re after addressing the issues in a genuine way, and taking a leading role in the electronics industry (as I reckon would make real sense for them, given that they need to spend the inflated price premium that they use to keep up their brand image on something, and it would be a key selling point for them as a brand based as much around aspiration as around the tech itself), this would also be the first step in how they’d do it.

The jury’s out so far, but I’m excited to see at least a move has been made. D’oh! I’d hate to have to eat my iHat and stop hating on Apple, but this is probably the most interesting step made so far in the smartphone sector.

After doing a bunch of reading up on HTC, Samsung and Apple smartphones, and some of the dodgy suppliers who make their phone components for them, I settled on upgrading my mobile to a Samsung Galaxy Note. I’ve had it a week now and really love it. It’s an amazing device, able to do most of what I’d ever want from a phone and a laptop all in one tool, which (just about) fits into my jeans pocket.

My choice had come down to the Galaxy Note or the almost as mammoth-sized HTC Sensation XL. In the end, I’d plumped for Samsung mainly as I’d not found any evidence that HTC had done anything to improve the situation with sweatshop touchscreen supplier YFO, whereas Samsung customer services had responded that they’d brought screen manufacture in house (not actually responding to ethical concerns of course, but side-stepping the problem could debatably be seen as slightly better than just doing nothing).

However, today Hazards Editor Rory O’Neill has helpfully pointed me towards reports that despite the improvements, Samsung might still not be doing enough over their bad record on exposing workers to hazardous chemicals, and that they’ve also got a draconian no union policy that has seen attempts to start up real independent unions bullied into failure.

As this article from July (that I somehow managed to completely miss!) shows, a new Korean law permits multiple union recognitions in a workplace. Up until now, the company has been able to point to deals with bogus management-controlled unions as evidence to show they didn’t need another one, but now an independant union has a real chance – if you can call standing up to a company that’s been far from afraid to bully out activists in the past a real chance that is…

So having bought a phone that’s now taken a rather severe ethical tumble, the challenge is on for me to find a way to use my swanky new Note to help push Samsung into doing better by the latest attempt at an independent union amongst employees at Samsung Everland.

Any suggestions short of tieing a note to it and lobbing its brick-sized form through Samsung HQ’s window (I do still love it…) would be gratefully received! At least it’s proving useful in finding more out – Today I’ve used it to sign this petition to Samsung, voted Samsung in this corporate misbehaviour award, and stuck some of Rory’s linked articles into Evernote, to read on its lovely 5.3″ Super AMOLED on my commute home.

And if you’re looking for a monstrous large Android smartphone from a slightly less unethical manufacturer, I guess (sigh…) the HTC Sensation XL vs Samsung Galaxy Note battle is back on – with the Taiwanese white monolith now looking much more the favourite – D’oh!

The Lumia 800 in particular looks like a pretty neato handset. So as I’m in the market for an upgrade at the moment, I thought I’d check it out a bit more. My upgrade choices (Samsung’s Google Nexus Prime, HTC’s Sensation XL and Apple’s iPhone 4s) all have some degree of question mark over their corporate ethics, so could do with some competition if I’m looking for a less unethical mobile (I realise I’ve no chance of an actively ethical one!).

What interested me was Nokia’s positive environmental record for handsets – coming out very high in a Greenpeace table some years back that Apple brought up the rear for. Unfortunately that may be where the ethical positives end.

It seems that the two new handsets have been allocated to two outsourced manufacturers, so Nokia’s pretty good labour standards policies don’t actually apply to the workers producing them, as they would in one of Nokia’s 9 directly owned factories. This is unsurprising really, as despite their in-house capacities, Nokia have been a big customer of evil outsourcing legends Foxconn for some time.

One report I’ve seen suggests the 710 and 800 have been allocated to Compal and Foxconn to produce, but it’s not entirely clear which manufacturer has which phone, with some sources listing Compal as having the 800 (codename Searay), but others suggesting mixed manufacture.

To be honest, I’ve also other concerns too away from the ethical. My current phone is Windows Mobile 6.1, and the upgrade path has been non-existant, as Microsoft moved within months onto 6.5 (not even a full version up) and dropped back compatibility, meaning no new apps or even a working app store for half their userbase. WinMo 7 looks nice, but with 8 on the horizon, I’d be extremely reluctant to trust a Windows Mobile phone again. At least with Android, you can risk flashing a phone to keep it a bit more current.

But my main concern is Foxconn. In other Foxconn news this week, Prince of darkness Terry Gou announced he’d be increasing Foxconn’s use of worker replacement robots from 10,000 units to a million over the next few years. The interweb has suggested cynically in many places this might be because the third law of robotics prevents them comitting suicide like Foxconn’s regular workers. Cynicism or no though, would you think the best place to make this announcement would be the annual workers’ dance party? It seems Terry “Mr Burns” Gou would.

Cue an email off to Nokia to see if they’ll say what Foxconn’s involvement with the 800 and 710 might be. Compal of course are not likely to appear on the Sunday Times great places to work list any time soon, but at least they’re not Foxconn. Otherwise the Nokia Lumia 800 is sadly most likely off my list as quickly as it came on.

I did inadvertently manage to get one useful bit of information out of them though. Samsung have for a long while been customers of sweatshop touchscreen outsourcer, Young Fast Optoelectronics (YFO), who provide them with LCD touchscreens. However, as I was asking specifically about the Galaxy S2 model, I found out that as Samsung have been the pioneers in AMOLED screen technology, they built the capacity to make the new type of screens in house, rather than use screen suppliers.

So this means if you’re looking at an AMOLED model (such as the current flagship Galaxy S2 or the forthcoming, and very tasty looking, Google Nexus Prime), the screen is a Samsung product. For their cheaper phones with LCD screens, I guess the screens are still coming from the unionbusting YFO.

Of course, I’m guessing the switch had more to do with making the most of Samsung’s own screen technologies, rather than any kind of reaction to their business ethics, so this is hardly a ringing endorsement, given that reading between the lines, they still use YFO for other models, and haven’t made any public comment I can find.

Second black mark against Samsung in recent times has been their lack of concern for the safety of their own workforce and the environment in parts of screen manufacture. Greenpeace have been on their case for some time, since most other electronics manufacturers started ditching the chemicals Brominated Flame Retardant (BFR) and Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC).

I asked Samsung specifically about this, but again no answer. However I recently stumbled on a new policy page on their site, which claims that they’re now BFR and PVC clear on all new model mobile phones since April 2010. So if your phone was launched after that date, it should hopefully be in the clear, meaning again that the Galaxy S2 and Nexus Prime are BFR and PVC free.

Presumably they didn’t want to crow about this though given their extreme tardiness in following the rest of the industry, and the between-the-lines admission that they may still be using the chemicals in 18 month old models that are still being manufactured (the original Galaxy S is still on sale – not sure if it qualifies).

So at the moment, Samsung seems to be sitting top of my ethical smartphone pile, ahead of heavy YFO customer HTC and Foxconn’s favourites Apple, but it’s a hollow recommendation, not really through any kind of positive action, and only true for the phones I’ve been looking at (Galaxy SII and Nexus Prime) rather than the manufacturer more widely.

Tim Cook’s biggest problem now is what to do with an $81bn and growing surplus that Apple are just sitting on. Frankly, they’re raking it in far faster than they can do anything with it. They were never big on dividends to shareholders, and even their much vaunted R&D operation is only $450m a year – hardly a pinprick on their cash mountain. And the problem shows no sign of going away – as they charge into the Chinese gadget market, they’re predicting a bailout-tastic £37bn for the next quarter.

So given they have more money than they know what to do with, why are they still so keen on screwing every penny out of their suppliers, and by extension their outsourced workforce? Looking at the iPhone, Apple have by far the largest margin on their handsets in the industry – up to 65%. And earlier this year, they started to demand their many downstream suppliers shave a further 10% off their costs, to compensate for the huge increases in iPad business Apple were putting their way.

Prominent amongst these suppliers is Foxconn, the Chinese electronics behemoth that assembles the iPhones and iPads from parts provided by dozens of separate suppliers. They do this sort of work for many companies, including Nokia. They do it cheap, and they do it on a huge scale.

Chances are though that if you’ve heard of them, it’s because of the shocking allegations flying around about their abuses of the hundreds of thousands of people working for them. Last year, after a string of worker suicides in their gigantic factory dormitories, Apple were shamed into acting, and Foxconn promised increased wages to compensate (which of course strangely seemed not to actually appear as promised, and where they did were accompanied by greater performance stress).

A very hefty chunk of Apple’s spare $81billion has been extracted from the sweat of Foxconn workers (and that’s just taking the first – if most infamous – name of their many suppliers).

Is it too much to ask for Tim Cook and Apple to ease up on the cash grab from now on? Use the strong-armed 10% savings, and more besides to make real change ongoing for the people without whom, Apple products couldn’t exist in such abundance.

It’s not just pay. Get Foxconn and others to reduce the punishing workloads, high stress levels and even workplace violence, to allow people some respite and dignity away from the company, and to improve basic safety provisions, so that workers don’t need to grind iPad cases without protective equipment against breathing in aluminium dust, or clean iPhone screens with dangerous solvents because non-toxic ones cost a fraction more.

Even a tiny fraction of $81bn would go an awful long way to repairing some of the damage Apple are doing to the workers it likes to pretend it doesn’t have.

HTC have come the closest in terms of answering my questions so far though, and were good enough to give me the requested copy of their Code of Ethics for suppliers (PDF). It’s not a bad policy *, mentioning the right to union membership, and many of the key terms you’d expect.

After a stunt last year by workers who make HTC phone touchscreens, HTC Chairperson Cher Wang engaged sympathetically but told her disrupted press conference that the issue wasn’t one she knew about, other than that it related not to HTC staff, but to a supplier (Young Fast Optoelectronics), and that therefore HTC unfortunately couldn’t do anything about it.

However, a lot of the issues in the HTC supplier code neatly map against a Taiwanese government inspector’s report from 2010. Chairperson Wang is a busy woman, so I’ve made her a handy cut out and keep guide:

* Unfortunately the HTC Code is rather let down by the fact it would seem to have no teeth whatsoever to ensure it’s effectiveness. Or rather, it has one little, and rather wobbly tooth:

(F) Upon HTC’s request, Suppliers agree to provide HTC with documents or proof with respect to Supplier’s implementation and compliance with this ethics code.

So if there are serious doubts as to YFO’s compliance with HTC’s supplier code (and I’d view a government report citing infractions of 5 of the code’s 8 sections to count as a serious doubt), are HTC able to show us a copy of the documents YFO provided on implementation and compliance?

I feel another email to customer services coming on…