At 10 a.m. today, Apple (News - Alert) customers who oppose the working conditions at Apple’s China production centers will march on stores in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Bangalore, Sydney and London. The protesters will be delivering petitions collected by Change.org and SumOfUs demanding that Apple develop a strategy to improve conditions for its workers.

The organizations collected 250,000 signatures, many from Apple customers and iPhone (News - Alert) users. “I use an iPhone myself,” said Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs. “I love it, but I don't love having to support sweatshops, and neither do millions of other Apple consumers.”

Apple’s worker policies originally came under scrutiny after a report showed that 14 workers at Foxconn, a company that manufactures Apple products in China, had committed suicide in part because of the horrendous working conditions. A National Public Radio show called “This American Life” also aired a report last month that stated that 16 year-old workers often worked in factories like Foxconn, making 70 cents per hour.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has responded to the uproar by sending an email to all Apple employees. “We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us.”

However, The New York Times reported that an anonymous former Apple executive stated, “We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on. Why? Because the system works for us.”

Protesters feel that, although Apple has asked the Fair Labor Association to monitor conditions in its supplying factories, the technology giant has not done enough to ensure that workers in those factories are treated well. They have asked Apple to release reports of the FLA’s findings and to develop a worker protection strategy for new product releases. The high-stress conditions during the periods leading up to major product releases, according to protesters, increases the likelihood of injuries and suicides.

Activists are expected to show up to stores wearing iPhone costumes, displaying iPhone posters and delivering signed petitions in Mac boxes. “This is a really huge step for us, in combining all of the voices we've collected from people all over the world asking Apple to clean up their supply chain,” Change.org human rights organizer Sarah Ryan stated. Apple spokespersons have issued no comment on the proposed actions.