Apple puts Westron under surveillance after exploited Indian workers smashed a building

For The second time in two months, Apple places a company that hires it to build an iPhone on notice for violating labor laws. Reuters, Bloomberg Others have reported that Apple has placed Taiwanese manufacturing giant Wistron under “surveillance” – meaning it won’t receive any new work from Apple until it sorts things out – after the supplier was discovered exploiting workers at a factory in India.

The reason we heard about this at all It is rather unbelievable: On 12 December, around 2,000 workers decided to protest unpaid wages through riots in a Wistron office, smashing the lobby and overturning vehicles. There is a video:

It now turns out that the workers’ complaint was legitimate: Wistron admits just as much, And the local government found serious labor violations in its initial investigation, according to South China Morning Newspaper And the Reuters. They say Wistron was paying too little and forcing some people to work overtime. And that’s just Wistron himself. The SCMP Police reports are also investigating brokers targeting Apple-contracted workers:

There have also been allegations of middlemen exploiting contract workers and withholding their wages, with police looking into the role of six contractors who have worked as middlemen for Wistron. They have reportedly lured workers by promising to pay extra if they stop working.

The investigation also reportedly reveals that 8,500 of Wistron’s 10,500 workers were contracted rather than full-time employees, and that the plant may have only been allowed 5,000 workers initially. (Wistron has started assembling iPhones in India Back in 2017.)

And they see He issued an apology“It is strengthening its operations and restructuring our teams to ensure that these problems do not happen again,” he said, adding that a “24-hour complaint hotline” and “employee assistant program” had already been established. The company says it has also fired its vice president of its India business.

Apple did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

The question now is whether Apple will do anything useful to prevent its suppliers from exploiting workers now that they are headline-grabbing again. The company owns A long history of association with work violations, A recent report suggested Apple would be turning a blind eye to it Even when you know there is a problem. Did Apple know about this?