Apple faces its 'Nike moment' over working conditions in Chinese factories...

Apple is facing a "Nike moment" which hit the shoe company in the 1990s when its use of cheap labour in the Far East was revealed, one of the inspectors of Apple's Chinese suppliers has said.

Speaking to ABC News' Nightline program, Ines Kaempfer of the US Fair Labor Association, which is inspecting the Foxconn assembly plants used by Apple in China, said that "There was a moment for Nike in the '90s, when they got a lot of publicity, negative publicity. And they weren't the worst. It's probably like Apple. They're not necessarily the worst, it's just that the publicity is starting to build up." Kaempfer said "We call it the 'Nike moment' in the industry."

Foxconn, the Taiwan-owned manufacturer which is one of Apple's main contractors, said on Monday it has raised wages by up to 25% after a spate of suicides last year and reports of long hours for the hundreds of thousands of staff. Full story...

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