While no company outshines Apple when it comes to design and marketing, some of its other endeavors need work.

Apple has a long and tiresome history of using alleged sweatshops to build its latest gizmos, and outsources heavily to Foxconn, where no fewer than 10 workers have committed suicide this year.

Apple’s response? As reported in the Wall Stree Journal today:

Apple spokeswoman Jill Tan: “We are definitely concerned … but would like to emphasize that Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility wherever Apple products are made.”

Her quote is followed by this damning statement: “Apple conducts annual reviews of final assembly manufacturers to uncover any possible violations of its Suppliers’ code of conduct. In its 2010 Supplier Responsibility Report, it found that 65% of the 102 facilities it audited were paying the wages and benefits due to workers.”  [itals mine]

What, in Apple’s eyes, constitutes “highest standards?” Would it accept a 65% yield on its iPods or iPhones?

I don’t think so.