Poor working conditions compel Indian iPhone plant employees to shut down factory

After over 250 female employees were found to be suffering from food poisoning at the Southern Indian Foxconn iPhone plant, a protest was led against the substandard conditions prevailing in the factory. This forced the plant to be shut down, where 17,000 employees had been working in a terrible environment, which included crowded dorms, lack of proper sanitation facilities and unhealthy food crawling with worms.

A close look by Reuters at the events before and after the December 17 protest casts a stark light on living and working conditions at Foxconn, a firm central to Apple's supply chain.

The tumult comes at a time when Apple is ramping up production of its iPhone 13 and shareholders are pushing the company to provide greater transparency about labour conditions at suppliers.

Workers slept on the floor in rooms, which housed between six to 30 women, five of these workers said. Two workers said the hostel they lived in had toilets without running water.

"People living in the hostels always had some illness or the other -- skin allergies, chest pain, food poisoning," a 21-year-old worker who quit the plant after the protest, told Reuters. Earlier, food poisoning cases had involved one or two workers, she said. "We didn't make a big deal out of it because we thought it would be fixed. But now, it has affected a lot of people."

Apple and Foxconn said on Wednesday they found that some dormitories and dining rooms used for employees at the factory did not meet required standards.

The facility has been placed 'on probation' and Apple will ensure its strict standards are met before the plant reopens, an Apple spokesperson said.

Laws governing housing for women workers in Tamil Nadu mandate each person be allocated at least 120 square feet of living space and require housing to adhere to hygiene and fire safety standards as laid out by local authorities.

Foxconn said it was restructuring its local management team and taking immediate steps to improve facilities. All employees would continue to be paid while it makes necessary improvements to restart operations, the company said.

Police detained 67 women workers and a local journalist, confiscated their phones, and called their parents with a warning to get their daughters in line, according to Reuters.

The unrest at Foxconn was the second involving an Apple supplier in India in a year.