Foxconn - PRNewser

Apple’s ‘Made in USA’ Plan: Good PR, Bad Strategy or Both?

Patrick Coffee — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:33:30 +0000

Apple CEO Tim Cook made the media rounds this morning to hype a major announcement: For the first time in well over a decade, Apple will be manufacturing a certain number of its products within the United States.

As cynics, we see this move as a blatant attempt to counter all the bad PR that Apple received over the Foxconn outsourcing/slave labor/suicide scandal (though we would note that this awful story didn’t really prevent anyone, least of all ourselves, from buying Apple products).

The fact that late CEO Steve Jobs supposedly denied a request for more domestic production from none other than President Obama strengthens this theory. As much as we’ve accepted outsourcing as a part of the modern business landscape, everyone loves to hear about good new jobs for Americans. So this is great PR, right?

Maybe–but investors hated it, and we have a feeling certain Apple advisers did too.

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Apple on Foxconn: We’re Doing Better, See?!

Patrick Coffee — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:16:34 +0000

Apple won a small reprieve on the matter of its biggest PR problem this week as the Fair Labor Association announced that the tech giant has slightly improved conditions at its now-infamous Foxconn plants in mainland China. The catch? Auditors stress that “the toughest tasks lay ahead.”

Prodded into action by pressure over a series of not-quite-positive stories in The New York Times, Apple has taken some steps to improve its standing among global labor advocates by reducing hours, raising wages and, apparently, improving general work conditions from “suicide-inducing” to “somehow tolerable!”

This is what we call progress. But it’s not like Apple really had a choice in the matter.

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Whose Reputation Suffers from the Mike Daisey/’This American Life’ Retraction’?

Tonya Garcia — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:22:37 +0000

Even though the weekly public radio program This American Life had to retract its very popular story about Apple’s Foxconn factory, poor working conditions at Foxconn will continue to be an issue the companies have to deal with.

“Our corporate image has been totally ruined,” said Foxconn spokesperson Simon Hsing in a media interview.

According to Reuters, the story forced Apple (and those who love Apple products) to take a closer look at how those products were being made. The fact that many of the things “reported” by Mike Daisey turned out to be untrue only clears the Foxconn name a little bit.

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Following Controversy, Apple Shedding More Light on Suppliers

Tonya Garcia — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:40:08 +0000

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A couple of weeks ago, Apple was feeling some major heat after a New York Times story revealed poor working conditions at factories making i-products. Things had gone so far as to cause the death of employees. Since then, it looks like Apple is taking steps to boost its rep in this area and squash the outcry.

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