Two online petitions asking Apple to improve conditions in overseas manufacturing plants (such as the Foxconn facilities in China) ahead of the next iPhone will be hand delivered to a number of Apple's retail stores tomorrow, reports "CNET."

Watchdog group SumOfUs (http://sumofus.org/) says that it plans to deliver its own petition, along with one from Change.org, to a number of Apple's retail stores around the world. That includes New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, London, Sydney, and Bangalore.

Combined, the two petitions have amassed more than 250,000 signatures, the group said. SumOfUs started an online grassroots campaign last month calling on Apple to address dangerous conditions in factories manufacturing the rumored iPhone 5.

"I use an iPhone myself. I love it, but I don’t love having to support sweatshops, and neither do millions of other Apple consumers," says Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs. "The hip, educated market that Apple aspires to corner is largely composed of responsible consumers who don’t want to be complicit in sweatshop labor. Apple’s attention to detail is famous, and the only way they could fail to be aware of dozens of worker deaths, of child labor, of exposure to neurotoxins is through willful ignorance."

A separate survey from Change.org (http://www.chang.org) asks Apple to "protect workers making iPhones in Chinese factories." It says that "we ask that Apple release a worker protection strategy for new product releases, which are the instances when injuries and suicides typically spike because of the incredible pressure to meet quotas timed to releases."

For more info go to http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-57373307-248/ethical-iphone-5-petition... .