On Thursday, US PIRG (led by NWIDA friend Nathan Proctor) delivered over 56,000 petition signatures to the FTC in Washington, DC.
We want to thank all of you who signed the petition on repair.org and the PIRG website. As the only trade and advocacy association for the wireless shop, we will continue to push for fair repair legislation to ensure the wireless repair shops get access to the parts and schematics you need to properly repair wireless devices.
In addition to the tens of thousands of signatures, they also delivered supportive letters signed by more than 600 lawmakers, organizations and businesses.
“In every corner of this country, from Maine to Alaska, from Nebraska to Hawaii, Americans just want to fix their stuff,” commented U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s Senior Right to Repair Campaign Director Nathan Proctor. “People have had enough unfixable products, and they want to FTC to take action to enhance their Right to Repair.”
NWIDA, iFixit, Consumer Reports, Repair.org, U.S. PIRG, Story of Stuff Project and Environment America collected the 56,961 signatures and encouraged the public to submit comments to the FTC’s website. To highlight some of the most interesting stories that Americans submitted about repair, advocates created a map tool, “Americans Just Want to Fix Their Stuff.”
The signatures and letters were signed by:
- 77 state lawmakers
- 485 repair shops / repair technicians
- 50 environmental groups
- 80 STEM education groups and maker spaces
- 19 groups working to address tech access and the digital divide
- 26 school IT programs concerning educational technology
- Hundreds of farmers as part of the National Farmers Union’s support
The petition calls for the FTC to initiate a rulemaking addressing some of the most common barriers to repair. Specifically, supporters want the agency to require manufacturers to allow access to parts and service manuals, and to ban anti-repair practices such as glued-in batteries and software locks against repair (often called “parts pairing”).
| NWIDA members, contact us today if you need our assistance. If you’re not yet a member, we invite you to join today. |
|
| Click here for news like this delivered to your inbox? |
|
| Click here for news like this in your RSS feed? |
|
| Join us on Reddit – |
|
| Subscribe to our YouTube Channel |
|
| Click to join our DISCORD Server |
|
| Join the NWIDA Slack Channel |
|
| Add our Flash Briefing to your Amazon Alexa Device |
|
Paid ad: