The integral smartphone and tablet supplier to the industry’s most influential players, Foxconn has a well-documented history of employee suicide and sub-standard working and living conditions. The absolutely massive company is known to house up to 400,000 staff in dormitories as they work high pressure and monotonous line work day in and day out.
Although the company now boasts higher wages than the averages of the areas where their factories are located, there is a tangible feeling of resentment among staff. Many of Foxconn’s army of workers are young adults, many of whom have tired of the treatment they receive and work they are understandably no longer excited to do.
A brawl at the company’s Taiyuan plant involving 2,000 workers and up to 5,000 police officers was simply the culmination of pent up resentment coming out. A good portion of the factory’s current staff were ‘borrowed’ from the company’s other factories in Shenzhen and Zhengzhou due to increasing demand at the Taiyuan location. The imported staff has been given vague and unclear answers regarding when they can return home, raising frustration levels in the 80,000 deep plant.
The focus on production that comes with the manufacturing of a plethora of top smartphones and tablets brings a great deal of pressure to the lives of the company’s workers, not aiding the other factors outlined above.
Police had been expecting some unrest, using patrol teams of 12 to monitor staff and ensure their brand of order. The brawl began with a small group of workers and a patrol team and eventually escalated to massive proportions. After four hours of chaos, 40 people were taken to the hospital for treatment.
According to the police, the altercation was not sparked by something work related. There is no telling how the brawl will effect production of the company’s current main project, Apple’s iPhone 5.
SOURCE: Business Insider & Globe and Mail
PHOTO: The AP
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