Apple move on Foxconn and contractors, but too late.

Facing a growing scandal over the working conditions of those making its best-selling gadgets, Apple has called in assessors from the same organisation that was set up to stamp out sweatshops in the clothing industry more than a decade ago.

The move is an admission that Apple's own system of monitoring suppliers has failed to stamp out abuses, and that the negative publicity surrounding its Chinese operations threatens to cause a consumer backlash against its products.

But campaigners for Chinese workers immediately criticised the company for conducting a public relations exercise instead of actually alleviating the long hours, harsh management and safety problems that have driven some workers to suicide and led to fatal accidents at plants.

The Herald

Too little, too late. Apple have fluffed on this issue too long, arguing that their own standards were good enough and tacitly supporting Foxconn. People like me, who have been watching this develop for years, knew that once Apple failed to move promptly, when it did, as it surely would have to, it would be caught doing too little too late. Apple is a brand now compromised by a willingness to support exploitative ER in its contracted assembly plants. It will have to do a great deal before that taint is removed. Mr Jobs may have been a design genius. but his stewardship of the company clearly included great holes