“We are forced to remain standing even for 24 consecutive hours, netting to suicidal condition, exposure to toxins and explosions.”

“By working endless overtime without either one day off a week”

“Living together in dormitories and exposing themselves to dangerous chemicals”

“Explosions occurred in factories killing factories worker”

These are some of the allegations that have recently surfaced regarding Apple’s facility working conditions, including a New York Times article published this week. But Apple’s CEO is firmly denying all these claims surrounding work conditions at its supplies factories.

Apple Under Fire

In an e-mail statement sent to Apple employees, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company “never turns a blind eye to problems in our supply chain.”

“Unfortunately, some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly,” Cook wrote. “We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us.”

Cook informed that Apple regularly checks and inspects the condition of work facilities.

“Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.” Cook added, “We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment.”

Cook promised to take stringent actions and ‘dig deeper’ into the issue. “On this you have my word,” said Cook, encouraging employees to follow the progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.

Apple has been repeatedly coming under fire for mistreatment allegations at its supply factories.  Most recently, workers at the Foxconn Technology Group threatened a mass suicide if their employers didn’t fulfill their demands, and if the factory conditions weren’t improved.

Change is Inevitable at RIM, says CEO

Research In Motion’s new CEO Thorsten Heins says the company will go through a structure and leadership change in coming days.  He’s changed his tune from earlier this week, clarifying his initial statement that he’d continue pushing forward with RIM’s existing plans around mobile device releases and OS updates.

“There is a lot of change,” he said. “There is a lot of structure change; there has been already a lot of change in terms of our software, our software platform, bringing QNX in. There is no standstill at any moment here at RIM.”

The statement backtracks on Heins’ earlier statement, which revealed that he didn’t believe in change and he would like to move forward with what the company had set in place by former CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.

Heins went on to say that RIM has the strength and the assets to succeed in the market. He doesn’t want to spilt or sell the company, and instead will look to its strengths to revive their market position.

“I think this got into a little bit of the black and white zone,” said Heins. “I was talking about drastic or seismic changes. What I was trying to address was that there was some suggestion that RIM should be split up or should even be sold. My true belief is that RIM has the strength and the assets that we can really succeed in this market. What I wanted to make clear to the market is that we believe in our own strength, we are BlackBerry, we are an integrated solution: hardware, software, services, and network.”

Jon Rubinstein is Leaving HP

In another top level executive development, former Apple executive and head of Palm Jon Rubinstein has left HP, effective today.

After HP acquired Palm, as a commitment Rubinstein stayed with HP for 12-24 months. “Jon has fulfilled his commitment and we wish him well,” HP spokeswoman Mylene Mangalindan said.

A bit of background: Rubinstein was the man behind Apple’s iPod music player. He left Apple in 2006 and joined Roger McNamee as a partner in the private equity firm Elevation Partners.  During his term as Palm CEO, Rubinstein pulled off a significant makeover of the Palm smart phone OS, later acquired by HP to form the core product behind webOS (now prepping to go open source).