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" Apple has been accused of a &amp;quot;public relations stunt&amp;quot; over its announcement that some manufacturing of Mac computers will shift to the US next year.  Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, said in an interview with NBC yesterday that an existing Mac line would be made in America rather than Asia in 2013.   He did not state which Macintosh product would be produced in America, but experts believe that the venture will go beyond just assembly and include building of components. Cook told Bloomberg that Apple will invest more than $100m in the project.  But corporate watchdog SumOfUs.org claimed that the announcement was a &amp;quot;PR Stunt&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;Apple has a track record of announcing changes in its supply chain as PR stunts,&amp;quot; SumOfUs.org&amp;#039;s Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman said.  &amp;quot;For years, Apple&amp;#039;s been making and breaking promises when it comes to ethical sourcing and how it treats its workers.&amp;quot; US companies like Apple have been criticised for not doing more to help improve the flagging US labour market.  America&amp;#039;s unemployment rate is currently at around 8% and the country&amp;#039;s manufacturing industry has struggled to compete with lower-wage nations such as China. Apple makes the majority of its products, including Macs, iPhones and iPads, in China at electronics plants, including those run by Foxconn, Apple&amp;#039;s biggest supplier.  However, the firm has also come under fire there over alleged poor working conditions at the plants, particularly following a spate of suicides at Foxconn sites.  Earlier in the year, a major report was published into conditions in Apple&amp;#039;s supply chain, but Stinebrickner-Kauffman claimed that &amp;quot;we&amp;#039;ve seen no virtually improvement in workers&amp;#039; lives&amp;quot;.  &amp;quot;Apple has an ethical obligation to make sure that all workers in its supply chain have humane working conditions, a living wage, and aren&amp;#039;t forced into illegal overtime,&amp;quot; she said.  &amp;quot;Moving part of its supply chain back to the US is not going to change the fact that its business model rests on the exploitation of hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers in sweatshop-like conditions.&amp;quot; The campaign group called on Apple not to just &amp;quot;nibble around the edges&amp;quot; of the problems, and instead &amp;quot;clean up its entire supply chain, or risk losing all credibility&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;Apple is clearly aware that they have a PR problem. That&amp;#039;s not at the level of a fundamental business model shift. They&amp;#039;re making a small token offering to appease consumers here in the US,&amp;quot; Stinebrickner-Kauffman alleged.  &amp;quot;Is it a coincidence that Tim Cook is announcing this move just before the holiday shopping season? I think this is a really savvy PR stunt by a corporation that has no actual intentions of cleaning up its supply chain. And I hope consumers aren&amp;#039;t taken in by it, but instead demand evidence of actual change from Apple.&amp;quot; Apple has previously insisted that conditions have improved in its supply chain, and pointed out that it voluntarily brought in non-profit Fair Labour Association to examine the situation at Foxconn plants. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/apple/news/a443663/apple-accused-of-pr-stunt-over-us-production-shift/>