Foxconn must improve living conditions for workers at shuttered iPhone plant

A cluster of food poisoning incidents and a protest shut down an Apple iPhone factory in India, and the reopening has been postponed yet again because of poor worker living conditions.

A week-long closure of the plant impacted by the food poisoning of workers will extend to at least 10 days. And, that opening won't be at full-strength — instead of the 17,000 workers, production is said to restart on Thursday with only 1,000 on the assembly lines.

The incident has induced the local government to inspect the hostels where the workers live in off-hours. In a report published on Monday morning, Reuters reports that the state government has instructed Foxconn to investigate the quality of the living conditions at the plant.

According to sources, specific concerns include power backups at the hostel, food and water sanitation, and the lack of options for recreation.

A separate source within the government said to Reuters that Foxconn had "ramped up production too quickly." The same source said that they would ensure that workers living conditions were upgraded before the plant was allowed to resume full production speed.

The incident of food poisoning led to protests blocking a key highway, with plant workers and relatives among those in attendance, preventing traffic from flowing on the road. Close to 70 women were detained from the protest on Saturday, with all released on Sunday.

An official added that some of the 22 men held by police were arrested. Beyond the closures, neither Foxconn nor Apple has commented on the matter.

The plant is known to be used for producing the iPhone 11 in the country since July 2020, and was previously used to assemble the iPhone XR and original iPhone SE.

Production of the iPhone 12 is also being carried out at the factory, though it did suffer from a loss of production in May due to coronavirus infections.

The protest is the second major incident of unrest to occur at Apple-related facilities in India in just over a year. In December 2020, most of the 2,000 employees rioted at a Wistron iPhone plant, smashing glass and setting fire to vehicles.

The unrest at the time was caused by workers not receiving the full pay they were told they would be receiving at the time of joining the company. In response to the riot, and the determination by state authorities that the factory broke labor laws, Apple put Wistron on probation until it addressed the issues.

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19 Comments

the1maximus 7 Years · 90 comments

About 2 years ago

This is probably just ignorance on my part, or maybe it’s because I’m use to the way we do things here in The States.

Why would Apple or Foxconn have to deal with the living conditions of the workers in their factories? Are living arrangements part of the agreement for employment? I feel this article should have at least explained this, just so we have some more context.

GeorgeBMac 8 Years · 11421 comments

the1maximus said:

This is probably just ignorance on my part, or maybe it’s because I’m use to the way we do things here in The States.

Why would Apple or Foxconn have to deal with the living conditions of the workers in their factories? Are living arrangements part of the agreement for employment? I feel this article should have at least explained this, just so we have some more context.

Effectively, those workers are Apple employees. Foxconn is essentially just a contractor or middleman. So, Apple holds some degree of responsibility for those employees.

The U.S. practiced worker abuse until Roosevelt strengthened regulations to protect American workers. Since then, stopping abuse of workers has become a cornerstone of our democracy. If we are to hold to our principles, worker protections against abuse by American companies do not stop when that American company operates in other countries.

lkrupp 19 Years · 10521 comments

the1maximus said:

This is probably just ignorance on my part, or maybe it’s because I’m use to the way we do things here in The States.

Why would Apple or Foxconn have to deal with the living conditions of the workers in their factories? Are living arrangements part of the agreement for employment? I feel this article should have at least explained this, just so we have some more context.

Like in China, these manufacturers typically build barracks/dormitories around the plant for workers to live in while employed. The same thing used to happen in the U.S. in coal mines and steel plants. The company built the town, then charged for food in the company store and rent for the company owned homes. Sometimes the workers ended up owing money to the company for working there. And yes, that happened in the U.S. until unions and labor laws came.

Since this factory’s exclusive client is Apple that’s why Apple gets dragged into these controversies. With Apple’s name attached the media sharks smell more blood in the water. You don’t hear about the major clothing design companies and department store brands getting this kind of treatment over working conditions in their sweatshops in the East, do you?

So why would any company who cares about human rights operate in India?

.... Oh yeh, sales and profit.

In other news, India's Modi has frozen the financial accounts of Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity because India's far right Hindu's don't like that they provide food, shelter, hospice care and education to India's countless destitute and homeless adults and children. They claim the Sisters are converting them to Christianity -- even though Mother Teresa had always been 100% clear that they are religious agnostics: they don't care what religion you are (if any) if you are an abandoned child, homeless & destitute or dying alone and that they only teach Christianity to those who are interested and request the teaching.

The result is that Modi and his far right Hindu's are blocking the Sisters from providing much needed food, shelter, hospice care and education to India's destitute and abandoned children.

GeorgeBMac said:

So why would any company who cares about human rights operate in India?
.... Oh yeh, sales and profit.

In other news, India's Modi has frozen the financial accounts of Mother Teresa's Sisters of Charity because India's far right Hindu's don't like that they provide food, shelter, hospice care and education to India's countless destitute and homeless adults and children. They claim the Sisters are converting them to Christianity -- even though Mother Teresa had always been 100% clear that they are religious agnostics: they don't care what religion you are (if any) if you are an abandoned child, homeless & destitute or dying alone and that they only teach Christianity to those who are interested and request the teaching.

The result is that Modi and his far right Hindu's are blocking the Sisters from providing much needed food, shelter, hospice care and education to India's destitute and abandoned children.

So George, what’s it like obsessing over all the injustice in the Western capitalism world knowing full well you can do absolutely nothing about it. Does ranting and raving about Western capitalism make you feel better. Do you sit down for a cup of hot cocoa after your rants, thinking you changed any minds? Just asking.

And by the way, Foxconn workers are NOT Apple employees no matter what your convoluted thinking tells you.