Bowen Liu / Apple

At least that’s the word from Foxconn chief Terry Gou, who said as much during today’s groundbreaking ceremony for the company’s new Shanghai headquarters.

“We’ve discovered that [improving factory conditions] is not a cost. It is a competitive strength,” Gou told reporters today. “I believe Apple sees this as a competitive strength along with us, and so we will split the initial costs.”

Gou didn’t elaborate on the size of Apple’s financial commitment, or its terms. Nor did he explain if this investment is a new one, or simply part of the same deal that’s seen the two companies invite audits by the Fair Labor Association. But it’s clear that Apple is bolstering its efforts to improve labor conditions at factories where devices like the iPhone and iPad are built. And any forward movement there is welcome.

Apple declined comment on Gou’s remarks.

Of course, Foxconn knew “Nightline” was coming and was obviously well prepared for its visit. Indeed, there are already allegations that Foxconn has been hiding underage employees from investigators.

That said, the Fair Labor Association is at this very moment conducting a massive audit of Foxconn that will see it not only examining production lines and employee dormitories, but digging through the company’s employment records in search of evidence of more serious problems. So perhaps there’s more to learn here. Maybe, Foxconn really doesn’t meet social responsibility standards.

But perhaps it does. And if — if — that’s the case and the FLA’s probe concludes without incident, maybe it’s time for the conversation to expand from allegations of employee abuse to subjects like fair wages, which actually seem to be top of mind for the Foxconn employees interviewed by “Nightline.”

Not to downplay any past or as yet uncovered worker mistreatment, but right now Foxconn seems to be just a massive contract manufacturer that folks living in industrialized nations probably wouldn’t want to work for. But thousands of others do, because, troubling though it may be, collecting $1.78 per hour for performing mind-numbing labor for 12 hours a day is a better alternative to remaining in the rural villages they come from.

In the meantime, they’re offering this teaser clip, along with a story-behind-the-story (warning — comes with annoying auto-play video):

This morning, a team of labor rights experts began inspections of Foxconn, a manufacturer that has been plagued with employee suicides and, last year, an explosion that killed four workers at its plant in Chengdu, China. The audits will cover the broad spectrum of working and living conditions at the manufacturer — health and safety, compensation, working hours and communication with management. Thousands of employees are to be interviewed and, according to Apple, the FLA will have unrestricted access to Foxconn’s manufacturing areas, as well as employee dormitories.

“We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. “The inspections now underway are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports.”

When completed, the FLA’s inspections will cover factories where more than 90 percent of Apple’s products are built. So, another step forward for labor rights — assuming that these audits have teeth, and that Foxconn is held accountable for whatever violations and issues the FLA turns up. And who knows, perhaps it will pressure other companies to implement similar measures. Apple isn’t the only consumer electronics company using offshore labor. Hear that HP? Dell?

In the message, first published by 9to5Mac, Cook says Apple is not “ignoring the human cost” of its supply chain, and dismisses accusations that it is complicit in worker abuse as mendacious.

“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,” Cook wrote. “Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.”

And for evidence of that, one need only look at Apple’s supplier-responsibility efforts. If there are problems at overseas suppliers, says Cook, no one is doing more than Apple to prevent them.

“Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain,” Cook explained. “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.”

Which is probably true. Apple has been conducting supplier-responsibility audits and issuing reports on them for years now. And it recently became the first tech company to join the Fair Labor Association, which will serve as an independent auditor for its supply chain.

That said, there’s still a lot more to be done, and Apple could likely do it. With the $13 billion in profits it reported earlier this week, and that $97 billion in cash it’s sitting on, it’s hard to argue otherwise.

As a former Apple executive told the New York Times, “Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.”

An overly simplistic argument, I suppose. The solutions to these issues are far more complex than threats over contracts. But again, more could be done. And not just by Apple. There are plenty of other big consumer electronics companies using offshore labor. And ultimately, the biggest driver of these issues isn’t Apple or HP, but our own buying habits.

In May, on the heels of a record year for industry revenue, employment at U.S. wireless carriers hit a 12-year low of 166,600, according to U.S. Labor Department figures released earlier this month. That’s about 20,000 fewer jobs than when the recession ended in June 2009 and 2,000 fewer than a year ago.

While the industry’s revenue has grown 28 percent since 2006, when wireless employment peaked at 207,000 workers, its mostly nonunion work force has shrunk about 20 percent.

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As it starts talks to replace three-year union contracts set to expire Aug. 6, Verizon wants to tie pay increases more closely to job performance, make it easier to fire workers for cause, halt pension accruals this year and require union workers to contribute to health-plan premiums.

The contracts cover 45,000 Verizon workers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions.

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Certainly it belies Apple’s rank of last in a list of 29 multinational technology companies in terms of responsiveness and transparency. Forty percent of the suppliers included in Apple’s report said this was the first time their facility had ever been reviewed for social responsibility compliance. Which is worth noting. Surely Apple isn’t the only consumer electronics company they’re working with. Hear that HP? Nokia?

Anyway…

Detailed in the report are the findings of 127 facilities audits, including core violations of Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct and Apple’s responses to them, which range from mandatory facility upgrades to the termination of business with violators (The company ended its relationship with 3 suppliers on 2010 for code violations). Sadly, Apple discovered 37 core violations in 2010, versus 17 the year before.

Also addressed, the sourcing of conflict-free “conflict minerals” like tantalum and tungsten, the n-hexane incident at Wintek and, of course, the suicides at Foxconn’s Shenzhen facility. Apple appears to have made significant headway on all three fronts, establishing a tantalum and tungsten smelter audit process, forcing Wintek to end its use of n-hexane and improve its ventilation systems and working with Foxconn to develop measures to prevent further suicides.

All good to hear, though obviously when an audit of 127 facilities turns up underage labor violations at nine facilities and hazardous chemicals at 80 more, there’s quite a bit more work to be done.

The song’s pro-labor lyrics include “Get ready to strike, get ready to walk the line” and “Protect my health care, don’t lower my wages/Realize, recognize, mobilize, stay alive” and even a shout-out to technicians who support U-verse, AT&T’s TV service.

It was co-written by Ray and Rachael Rodriguez, AT&T (T) employees who are active in the Communications Workers of America Local 6222, as well as Riley Wallace, a Toronto hip-hop artist whose stage name is Special.

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On Sunday, the company announced Elevate America, a three-year job-training effort aimed at giving people the technology skills they need to survive in the job market. Under the program, it will offer one million vouchers for Microsoft eLearning courses and certification exams, and expanded access to Microsoft-vetted technology literacy and skills training programs. “Millions of Americans don’t have the technology skills needed in today’s economy,” Pamela Passman, a Microsoft vice president, said in a statement. “Through Elevate America, we want to help workers get the skills they need to succeed.”

Well, the Microsoft (MSFT) skills they might need, anyway. Which is, obviously, in Microsoft’s best interests. The more Certified Technology Specialists it has in the market, the better.