The working women who assemble the iPhone of Apple in its factory India they had to survive by consuming food contaminated with worms while living in dormitories full of rats without running water. And all this for less than $ 5 a day, according to a new Reuters survey. It does not mean that if they received a higher daily wage, their miserable living conditions would be justified.
The data of the new research on the sick conditions in a factory with 17,000 employees come in the shadow of the new bonuses given by the Apple to some of its engineers who are also on vacation and up to $ 180,000.
The situation came to light when 159 women were hospitalized for food poisoning in mid-December, sparking fierce protests by workers.
Since then, Apple has indefinitely put Foxconn’s plant under surveillance and says it will not reopen until it meets the “strict standards” of the parent company.
Conditions reminiscent of Manolada – Toilets without water, 30 people in a dormitory and rent to contractors
The miserable conditions were reported in detail in a Reuters investigation on Thursday, which included interviews with six women working at the factory, which is located outside Chennai.
Workers said they were forced to sleep on the floor in dormitories, with up to 30 women sleeping in a single room. At least one of the dormitories had toilets without running water, workers said.
This is said to have left many of the women – most of them aged 18 to 22 – with various health problems.
“People living in hostels have always had one disease or another – skin allergies, chest pain, food poisoning,” a 21-year-old woman who quit her job after the protest told Reuters. “We did not do much of it because we thought it would be fixed. “But now it has affected a lot of people.”
Women working in the factory will continue to be paid as long as Apple investigates working conditions, according to Reuters. They make $ 140 a month – or about $ 4.67 a day – but have to pay a Foxconn contractor for housing and food while working in the factory.
Several activists and academics have said that women recruited from rural villages to work in local factories are seen by employers as less likely to unionize or protest, a factor that has made the Foxconn factory protests even more shocking.
During one of the demonstrations in December, the police rocked male workers from a nearby plant that had joined with women, then hunted some of the women and hit them also, told reuters local trade union leaders. Police also arrested 67 workers and a local journalist, confiscated their phones and called on their parents with warnings to put their daughters in line, the agency said.
Food poisoning and protests have led to at least four investigations by regional government agencies, including some that are ongoing. Officials have also privately warned Foxconn to improve working conditions, Reuters reported.
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