An iPhone manufacturing facility in Kolar district in Karnataka, operated by Taiwan-headquartered Wistron Corporation, has reportedly been vandalised. A video clip of the violence, allegedly by workers, has also appeared online. However, this clip has not been independently verified. Press Trust of India has quoted a police official saying that the workers attacked the facility — damaging windows, vehicles, furniture, and computers — over salary-related issues. A trade union leader also reportedly said that most employees were not being paid on time and they were unhappy about many deductions in their salaries.
The workers allegedly claim that many of them were made to work for 12 hours but only paid Rs. 200 to Rs. 300 per day calculated for 7-8 hours, according to a report by News 18. The vandalism took place after the management failed to address their grievances, as per the report.
Hundreds of workers are said to have ransacked the manufacturing facility, located in Narasapura Industrial Area in Kolar district, 51 kilometres from Bengaluru, after their night shift ended at 4 am today, December 12.
Wistron Corporation manufactures iPhone 7 for Apple, and IT products for Lenovo, Microsoft among other companies. The company has not made any official statement so far.
Will iPhone 12 mini become the affordable iPhone we’ve been waiting for? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.