Workers riot at Wistron iPhone plant in India over shorted pay
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.
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.
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.
Employees allege they have not been paid properly. pic.twitter.com/GKbeFeyRKc-- TOI Bengaluru (@TOIBengaluru)
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.
Comments
Agree with Crowley. Apple should not give its business to unethical parts or production sources. I'd also add that those who are committing crimes and causing property damage should be held fully accountable. Violence is not the answer.
Apple has been busy ramping up virtue signaling over environmental concerns and worker’s rights over the past decade. But it’s hard to stay focused on that when the leadership is surrounded by a 21st century glass-walled office working environment that is far out of sight of everyday working conditions many thousands of miles away.
Apple Park, a triumph of architecture, engineering and productive office working space, never considered the manufacturing environment, not even as an afterthought. That tells us all we need to know about their thought processes and priorities in the whole lifecycle chain of Apple products.
- The employees who caused damage should be immediately identified, fired, and banned from ever working at Wistron again
- Individual criminal charges should be filed
- Apple needs to find out immediately details around employee pay. I find it very hard to believe Wistron thought it could get away with this knowing Apple's strict vendor employee rules and consequences. It makes no sense. I think there is more to the story
India is a mess. The only reason Apple manufacturers there is to avoid paying ridiculous import tariffs. I don't think India is viable for production to supply the rest of the world. That is going fall to Vietnam, other SE Asian countries and maybe Mexico
1. This is NOT Apple. So no, Tim Cook did not cut these people's pay nor is Apple in any control of what happens here. This does not reflect Apple's human rights and none of these people are Apple employees.
2. Apple cannot snap their fingers and materialize a new 3rd party manufacturer out of thin air, with property and employees and all.
3. Apple should ONLY be concerned about employees striking as it slows down production. THIS is what we should be concerned about as Apple contracted this company to fulfill a purpose and this company not paying employees fairly gets in the way of this purpose.
Again this IS NOT APPLE!!! Apple has a contract in place and the fact management is failing at this contract gives Apple the right to sue the sh** out of them. I'm sure the contract has quotas in place and punishment if these company rips Apple off. This is basic business practice here.
What iKnockoff morons failed to realize is that the employees that jumped to their death WERE NOT employees of Apple and most were not even working on Apple products. Most were from the XBox division. No one gave a sh*t except Apple who installed nets to reduce suicides. Every state in the U.S. has a higher suicide rate than Foxconn. Every University in the United States has a higher suicide rate than Foxconn. The irony when iKnockoff morons blame Apple for suicides(that they had no hand in) and yet don't care about what's going on in their own back yard.
And let the managers go? This sounds like some right-wing nut nonsense.
I FULLY support a dog biting it's owner after being abused for too long and I don't support the owner euthanizing the dog because he's become violent.