A group of shareholders earlier this year asked Apple's board to prepare a report on how the company protects workers in its supply chain from forced labour. The request for information covered the extent to which Apple has identified suppliers and sub-suppliers that are a risk for forced labour, and how many suppliers Apple has taken action against.

We are not sure why this is such a problem, it is not as if Apple or its suppliers use forced labour, or that Jobs Mob would not take steps to stamp it out if it was aware of it. However, for some reason, Apple did not want to do that and asked the SEC to allow it to ignore the question. The SEC said no, and now Apple will have to face a vote on the proposal at its annual shareholder meeting next year, barring a deal with the shareholders who made it.

This is the second time in a week that Apple’s insistence on keeping things shady have been kicked in the Jobs by SEC. Yesterday, we reported how the SEC also denied Apple's request to skip a shareholder proposal that would give investors more information about the company's use of non-disclosure agreements.