[Lamplighter]

Whether in self-defense or prevention mode, Apple is doing the right thing
by demonstrating corporate responsibility and leadership. Now, will/can MS et al. follow suite ?

NY Times
By CHARLES DUHIGG and NICK WINGFIELD
|February 13, 2012

Apple Asks Outside Group to Inspect Factories

<snip>
Last month, Apple released the names of 156 of its suppliers.
Two weeks later, Apple’s chief executive sent an e-mail to the company’s 65,000 employees
defending Apple’s manufacturing record while also pledging to go “deeper into the supply chain.”
And now, the company has asked an outside group
— a nonprofit financed partly by participating companies like Apple
— to publicly identify specific factories where abuses are discovered.

Corporate analysts say Apple’s shifts could incite widespread changes
throughout the electronics industry, since a lot of companies use the same suppliers.
They also said it seemed calculated to forestall the kind of public relations problems
over labor issues that in previous decades afflicted companies like Nike, Gap and Disney.

“This is a really big deal,” said Sasha Lezhnev at the Enough Project, a group focused on corporate accountability.
“The whole industry has to follow whatever Apple does.”<snip>

Apple, in a statement, said that the Fair Labor Association was an independent organization
that had been given “unrestricted access” to the company’s suppliers.
The first inspections, Apple said, were conducted on Monday
at a factory in Shenzhen, China, known as Foxconn City, one of the largest plants within China.
Human rights advocates have long said that Foxconn City’s 230,000 employees
are subjected to long hours, coerced overtime and harsh working conditions, all of which Foxconn disputes.