Electronics maker Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), a key manufacturer of iPhones and iPads for Apple, has been hit by a new staff dispute, with employees saying they protested this week about pay and relocation plans.
Workers at affiliate Foxconn Premier Image Technology (China) Ltd (普立爾) in Foshan, near the booming metropolis of Guangzhou, said yesterday that there had been a large protest this week over pay.
“The entire street here was filled with workers,” said one worker, sitting astride a moped outside the factory on a leafy avenue in a dusty industrial estate.
“There were perhaps six or seven thousand,” said the worker, who declined to be identified. “We’re not satisfied.”
Other workers trickling out of the gates spoke of demands for significantly higher wage levels, as well as opposition to plans to redeploy batches of workers to inland factories.
Foxconn has struggled to repair its image following a series of apparent worker suicides at its plants in southern China. The company has pledged to improve worker conditions and has raised salaries.
Many factories operating in China have been moving away from coastal regions such as Guangdong and Fujian provinces to inland areas, where labor and land costs are cheaper.
Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) in Taiwan, will invest US$2 billion on a new plant in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, the city government said last month.
A Hon Hai spokesman denied there was any organized industrial action, but said some workers had come together to ask for higher wages. He declined to comment on how many workers were involved.
Workers in Foshan said that management had not agreed to any demands and instead threatened to fire any striking workers.
“They put out a notice saying if we strike they’ll fire us,” another worker added.
According to one worker, the factory pays a basic wage of 1,100 yuan (US$165.80) a month, which he said is less than what Foxconn had promised to pay its workers when it raised wages recently.
Take-home pay, after overtime and deductions for social security, is about 2,000 yuan per month.
Other workers appeared nervous and would not comment when asked about the dispute.
The Foshan plant employs about 20,000 people, according to workers, far smaller than Foxconn’s big facilities in Shenzhen on the other side of the Pearl River delta, which employ several hundred thousand workers.
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