Malcolm Owen
Employees in an iPhone production facility in India became violent on Saturday, over claims workers are not being paid what they were allegedly promised by Apple assembly partner Wistron.
The Friday night-shift at the Narasapura manufacturing plant operated by Wistron saw violence prompted by a pay dispute. Most of the 2,000 staff working at the operation are said to have caused destruction to property, including furniture, assembly units, and set fire to vehicles at the location, prompting a police response.
The offices of senior executives were targeted by the employees, reports The Times of India, with broken glass and doors seen in videos filmed by attending employees.
Karnataka: #Violence at iPhone production plant run by Taiwan-based #Wistron Corp at Narasapura (in Kolar district) near #Bengaluru.
— TOI Bengaluru (@TOIBengaluru) December 12, 2020
Employees allege they have not been paid properly. pic.twitter.com/GKbeFeyRKc
Sources told the report the unrest was caused through the workers not receiving the full pay they were told they would be receiving at the time of joining the company. One staff member alleged an engineering graduate was promised Rs 21,000 ($285) per month, but instead had Rs 16,000 ($217) at first, which then reduced down to Rs 12,000 ($163) in the last three months.
Other employees allegedly had it worse, with one non-engineering graduate's salary cut down to Rs 8,000 ($108), and some claiming to have been paid as little as Rs 500 ($6.78). The bad sentiment grew throughout the shift, erupting in violence by the early hours of the morning.
Wistron has yet to comment on the incident.
The factory in Narasapura was the center of major hiring for the Apple assembly partner, with initial efforts from August aiming to hire 2,000 workers with a final goal of generating 10,000 jobs. It is unclear if the staff at the center of the violence were part of this freshly-hired group.
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44 Comments
This isn’t uncommon in India. One of my former employers had this happen at their Pune factory a few years back. Destroyed equipment and glass throughout the building and actively sought out managers the to beat up.
Welcome to India. Supposed democracy where 98% of the population are treated like human garbage, due to barbaric, medieval caste system, mindless religious zealotry and grotesque overpopulation. If Apple don't want to see their humanistic reputation (what's left of it after almost selling their soul to capture Chinese market) sullied even further, they had better tighten their grip and sense of responsibility over their proxies there.
According to workers I met from SE Asia this is inline with how contractors take advantage of their employees. They even charge them a hefty fee for the opportunity to work! Apple should pull their contract from such corrupt executive culture, or force a major change and executive terminations. Unfair treatment of employees will be reflected in the quality of products that come out of those factories.