Here we go again.

In response to Apple’s bad reputation for its alleged unethical working conditions and treatment of employees at its manufacturing plants in China, users of Apple products are fighting back. Local customers are planning to deliver a quarter of a million petition signatures to Apple stores in headquarters such as Washington, DC; New York City; San Francisco; London; Sydney; and Bangalore. The petition demands that the consumer electronics giant make the iPhone 5 “ethical.”

This Thursday, February 9 at 10am, local consumers plan to deliver a signed petition to the Apple store in Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal. The movement was started by Mark Shields and his site, Change.org.

“I have been a lifelong Apple customer and was shocked to learn of the abusive working conditions in many of Apple’s supplier factories,” Shields. “At Foxconn, one of Apple’s biggest manufacturers, there is a history of suicides, abusive working conditions, and almost no pay. These working conditions are appalling, especially for Apple.”

The conditions at Apple’s Foxconn plant are hardly news as the topic has been in the national press for several months (we covered the issue last year in Risk Management and have written about it extensively on this blog). It seems, however, that Apple is being less-than-forthright in correcting a wrong that has been made public and, in doing so, has scarred the company’s reputation. What will it take for Apple to get a hold of a risk that is affecting their image and, possibly to come, their bottom line? Their recent, minimalist damage control methods may not be enough.