Apple after the bell 6/26/06: up, but negative press about iPod manufacturers still dogging company

Posted Jun 26th 2006 8:25PM by Tobias Buckell
Filed under: After the Bell, Bad News, Rumors, Competitive Strategy, Apple Inc (AAPL)

Apple finished the day up 16 cents at $58.99, a nice little bump for the stock. However, today saw some tough news that might damage Apple's above-average image.

The company producing Apple's iPods, Foxconn, admitted that it broke Chinese labor law by forcing employees to work 80 extra hours a month above and beyond their normal schedules. They noted that Apple did sent a special team to investigate, and claim that their complicated salary structure leads to outsiders getting confused about who is getting paid what.

These replies still avoid the mentions of armed guards and low pay, curiously enough. It'll be interesting to see how Apple corporate handles this and will certainly tell us a lot about how Apple views corporate social responsibility.

[Disclosure: I own Apple stock at the date of this post]

Tags: apple ipod, AppleIpod, chinese labor law, ChineseLaborLaw, foxconn, social responsibility, SocialResponsibility