Apple iPhone Plant Workers Protest Over Squalid Living Conditions

Apple iPhone assembly workers at a Foxconn plant in southern India endured crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes tainted with worms in return for a paycheck.

The workers’ anger boiled over when the tainted food sickened over 250 of them, resulting in a rare protest that shut down the plant where 17,000 had worked.

Foxconn, a company central to Apple’s iPhone supply chain, was the site of the Dec. 17 protests, which shed light on Foxconn’s living and working conditions.

The turmoil has occurred as Apple ramps up production of its iPhone 13 and shareholders call for greater transparency about the conditions of labour at suppliers.

Reuters interviewed six women who worked at the Foxconn plant near Chennai. All requested anonymity for fear of retaliation on the job or from the police.

Five of these workers said they slept on the floor in rooms that housed between six and 30 women. A hostel they lived in had no running water or toilets.

One worker, a 21-year-old woman who resigned after the protest, told Reuters that people living in the hostels were always sick – skin allergies, chest pain, food poisoning. In the past, one or two workers had been affected by food poisoning.

Because we thought it would be fixed, we didn’t make a big deal out of it. But it is now affecting many people,” she said.

Apple places Foxconn on probation

On Wednesday, Apple and Foxconn announced that some dormitories and dining rooms used by factory employees did not meet the required standards.

A spokesperson for Apple said the facility has been placed “on probation” and the company will ensure its strict standards are met before reopening it.

The remote dormitories and dining rooms being used by employees do not meet our requirements, and we are working with the supplier to ensure a comprehensive set of corrective actions is put into place as quickly as possible.”

However, the spokesperson did not elaborate on the improvements or standards that will be made at the plant.

The laws governing housing for women workers in Tamil Nadu stipulate that each individual receives at least 120 square feet of living space and the housing must adhere to local standards for hygiene and fire safety.

Foxconn announced that it was restructuring its local management team and taking immediate steps to improve its facilities. While the company makes the necessary improvements to resume operations, all employees will be paid, the company said.

Foxconn contractor Venpa Staffing Services, which runs the dormitory where workers were sickened, declined to comment.

At least four state agencies in Tamil Nadu have also begun investigations following the food poisoning and protests. The state government has also privately told Foxconn to improve its conditions.

Thangam Thennarasu, the industries minister of Tamil Nadu state, told Reuters Foxconn is responsible.

Delta variant raging in India

The state government of Tamil Nadu said in a statement last week that the state had asked Foxconn to improve working and living conditions, including housing and water quality.

Foxconn has pledged to ensure that worker living conditions follow government recommendations and meet legal requirements, according to the statement.

The plant’s reopening date has not been announced by Apple or Foxconn.

Foxconn reportedly told state officials it had “ramped up production too quickly” though production was curtailed while the Delta variant of Covid-19 raged in India during April and May, a senior government official from the state’s industries department told Reuters.

Foxconn, which is headquartered in Taiwan, announced the opening of the plant in January 2019, a boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” campaign to create manufacturing jobs.

In Sriperumbudur, a town outside of Chennai where the factory is located, there are also factories that manufacture Samsung and Daimler products.

The factory is central to Apple’s efforts to shift production away from China because of tensions between Beijing and Washington. Foxconn is expected to invest up to US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) in the plant over the next three years, according to Reuters.

Labour brokers staff Foxconn’s factories, and they’re also responsible for housing the workers there, who are mostly women.

An outbreak of food poisoning at Apple dormitory

Jegadish Chandra Bose, a senior food safety officer in the Thiruvallur district where the hostel is located, told Reuters that food safety inspectors visited the hostel where the outbreak of food poisoning occurred and found rats and poor drainage in the kitchen.

According to him, the samples analysed did not meet the required safety standards.

Women working at Foxconn’s plant earn about US$140 a month and pay Foxconn’s contractor for food and housing.

The majority of workers are between 18 and 22 and come from rural areas of Tamil Nadu, according to the head of a women workers’ union. State government guidelines indicate that the monthly payment at the plant is more than a third higher than the minimum wage for such jobs.

A 21-year-old worker who quit following the protest told Reuters that her parents are farmers who grow rice and sugarcane. Many people in her village sought city jobs, and she considered Foxconn to be a good employer.

Women recruited from farming villages to work at Sriperumbudur’s factories are seen by employers as unlikely to unionize or demonstrate, a factor that made Foxconn’s protests – which aren’t unionised – even more noteworthy.

159 women were hospitalized Apple dormitory

In Chennai, V. Gajendran, assistant professor at the Madras School of Social Work, said women employed in nearby factories typically come from “large, poor, rural families, which exposes them to exploitation and reduces their ability to organize and struggle for their rights.”

According to Reuters, 159 women were hospitalized because of food poisoning on Dec 15. The Thiruvallur district administration said last week that 100 more women required medical care but were not admitted to the hospital.

In the past, there was a rumour that some of the women who had fallen ill had died. This turned out to be untrue. Some of the sick workers did not show up for work at the factory two days later, prompting others to protest at the time of shift changes.

The worker told Reuters: “We were alarmed and decided to protest in the hostel. There was no leader.”

A district administration official said about 2,000 women from Foxconn hostels took to the streets on Dec 17 to block a key highway near the factory.

A new protest was held the following day by male workers, including workers from a nearby auto factory, Foxconn workers told Reuters.

A second protest resulted in police striking male workers and chasing and striking women who were involved, two workers and a local union leader who had interviewed workers told Reuters.

No Coronavirus guidelines

According to sources, police detained 67 women and a journalist, confiscated their phones, and warned their parents to get their daughters in line. This is according to the detainees, local union leaders, and a lawyer who is trying to assist the detainees.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the police response descriptions.

Mr Sudhakar, a top police official in Kancheepuram, denied beating protesters, confiscating phones, and intimidating workers.

We strictly followed guidelines, complied with all rules, and respected those who were detained,” he told Reuters.

A village administrator who visited the hostel where the food poisoning incident occurred on Dec 16 to investigate living conditions found no precautions to prevent Covid-19 infection, he told police in testimony reviewed by Reuters.

I went to that place because there is a possibility that it could become a Covid cluster,” Mohan told police. Women were forced to stay in a hostel where there were no Coronavirus guidelines.”

Foxconn was the second Apple supplier in India in a year to be involved in labour unrest. A factory owned by Wistron Corp was damaged by thousands of contract workers in December 2020 over unpaid wages, resulting in an estimated damage of US$60 million.

After placing Wistron on probation, Apple said it would not award the Taiwanese contract manufacturer-new business until it addressed the treatment of workers.

At the time, Wistron said it had worked to raise standards at the factory and fix issues, such as the payroll system. Plant operations resumed in March. Reuters contacted Apple for comment on Wistron’s status, but the company did not respond immediately.

Source: Reuters