A halt in production nearly crippled output of the iPhone 5 due to workers attempting to go on strike. Between thee to four thousand workers walked out of a Foxconn plant on Friday, October 5th, but according to Foxconn all the factory workers have gone back to business and no strike is in effect.
According to Business Week, Executive Director Li Qiang of Foxconn mentioned in a phone interview that the company threatened the workers to return to work or they would be fired. The workers then halted their strike in order to get back to work at the risk of being fired.
Daniel Chang, an analyst with Macquarie Securities commented about the situation, saying…
“What’s important is the implication,” … “At a time when China’s wage level is rising it’s creating big challenges for assembly plants like Foxconn.”
Apple and Foxconn have been attempting to curb poor worker conditions over the past year, as noted in a previous article here at iPhone Informer. However, many workers were duly angered at the idea of having to work through a week-long holiday and being told to increase the quality of production that eventually led to unrest amongst employees, which in turn triggered Friday’s walkout.
China Labor Watch reported that employees were being pressured to increase the quality of iPhone 5 output, creating tension between overseers who were in charge of enforcing quality control and floor workers who were in charge of actually carrying out the production of iPhone 5 devices. Tension continued to rise when Apple received consumer complaints over iPhones being scratched.
China Labor Watch released a statement, saying…
“With such demands, employees could not even turn out iPhones that met the standard,”. “This led to a tremendous amount of pressure on workers.”
Due to the news of the walkout on Friday, Apple’s stock dropped by 2% to $652.59 a share.