Foxconn Technology Group workers returned to the assembly line in Zhengzhou, China, that makes Apple Inc.’s iPhone 5 after walking off their jobs Saturday, advocacy group China Labor Watch said.
A dispute occurred between the production and quality teams at the factory and that was resolved by Saturday afternoon, Simon Hsing, a spokesman for Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Foxconn’s flagship unit, said in a phone interview.
“Three to four thousand” production employees walked off the job at the plant Saturday, and they returned to work Sunday after the management said they’d be fired for a failure to turn up, Executive Director Li Qiang said.
Workers walk outside a Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China. (Bloomberg)
The workers action happened after they were being made to work through a holiday week and being subject to “overly strict” product-quality demands without adequate training, the group said in a press release dated Oct. 5. The walkout was the result of demands placed by Apple on its manufacturer to improve the quality of the iPhone 5 after customers complained that the company’s latest handset had scratches, China Labor Watch said.
“What’s important is the implication,” said Daniel Chang, an analyst with Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Taipei. “At a time when China’s wage level is rising it’s creating big challenges for assembly plants like Foxconn.”
Louis Woo, a spokesman for Foxconn, denied there had been 4,000 workers involved in a strike or work stoppage, speaking in a phone interview.
The issue adds to the labor woes Taiwan-based Foxconn has faced in the past two years, after a fight among 2,000 workers at another plant in China resulted in a production stoppage last month.
Foxconn raised overly strict demands on product quality without providing worker training for the corresponding skills, China Labor Watch wrote. This led to products that did not meet standards and ultimately put a tremendous amount of pressure on workers, it said. (Bloomberg)
