Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
28-06-2024
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI: The Indian government has sought a detailed report from Tamil Nadu state following media reports that Apple supplier Foxconn was allegedly rejecting married women for iPhone assembly jobs.
A media outlet alleged that Foxconn had excluded married women from jobs at its main India iPhone plant near Chennai, citing their greater family responsibilities compared to unmarried women.
The federal labour ministry says the law “clearly stipulates that no discrimination (is) to be made while recruiting men and women workers”.
Neither Apple nor the Tamil Nadu state government responded to requests for comment from Reuters.
The media has also reached out to Foxconn and the Tamil Nadu labour department for a response.
Foxconn, the largest supplier of Apple iPhones, set up its first factory in Tamil Nadu in 2017 but has since been aggressively expanding its operations in India.
In 2023, it began assembling the iPhone 15 in the state and earlier this year, Foxconn tied up with Google to make Pixel smartphones in Tamil Nadu.
Rights activists say the reports about the firm’s hiring practices in India are concerning, given that thousands look to its factories for employment opportunities.
Reuters said it spoke to numerous employees and Foxconn hiring agencies for the story.
The report said that hiring agents and Foxconn HR sources “cited family duties, pregnancy and higher absenteeism as reasons why Foxconn did not hire married women at the plant”.
This isn’t the first time the firm has come under the scanner for its labour practices.
In 2018, a US-based rights group had accused the firm of overworking and underpaying temporary workers at its factory in China that manufactured products for Amazon.
In 2022, its iPhone factory in China saw protests by workers who claimed that they had not been paid certain dues.
Earlier, Apple supplier Foxconn has apologized for a “technical error” in its payment systems, a day after its iPhone factory in China was rocked by angry protests.
Videos had showed hundreds of workers marching at the world’s biggest iPhone factory in the city of Zhengzhou, with complaints over COVID restrictions and claims of overdue pay. Those livestreaming the protests said workers were beaten by police.
One Foxconn worker told media that the situation had since been resolved.
Last month, rising COVID cases saw the factory locked down, prompting some workers to break out and go home. The company then recruited new workers with the promise of generous bonuses but one worker said these contracts were changed so they “could not get the subsidy promised”, adding that they were quarantined without food.
On Thursday, Foxconn released a statement saying a “technical error occurred during the onboarding process”, adding that the pay of new recruits was “the same as agreed [in the] official recruitment posters”.
The firm said it was in constant communication with the affected employees about the pay and bonuses and was doing its best “to actively solve the concerns and reasonable demands of employees”.
A worker also told media on Thursday that he had since received 8,000 yuan ($1,120; £926) and was set to receive another 2,000 yuan.
