worklabor riot forces Foxconn to close China plant

Foxconn Technology, a major supplier to some of the world’s electronics giants, including Apple, said that it had closed one of its large Chinese plants early Monday after police were called in to break up a fight among factory employees.

The company said several people were hospitalized and detained by the police after the disturbance, which occurred late Sunday, escalated into a riot.

Workers at Foxconn’s Taiyuan, China plant rioted in the early hours of Monday morning, requiring police to be dispatched to quiet down the workers.

Following the riots at Apple's FoxConn Chengdu plant in June, engadget is reporting that FoxConn's Taiyuan plant - the scene of earlier strikes over salary disputes back in March - has suffered damage as workers riot. Police are on site to control the crowd and while the motive is not clear, it is apparently unrelated to the recent anti-Japan protests. It appears that much damage has been done in the process.

The Foxconn plant, in the city of Taiyuan, in central China, employs about 79,000 workers.

A Foxconn spokesman declined to specify whether the Taiyuan facility made products for the Apple iPhone 5, which went on sale last week, but he said that it supplied goods to many consumer electronics brands. Foxconn said it employed about 1.1 million workers in China.

The disturbance is the latest to hit Foxconn, a key supplier of products to Apple and other global electronics companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Microsoft.

Apple and Foxconn have worked together in the last year to improve conditions, raise pay and improve labor standards.

Disturbances at factories have become increasingly common in China, rights groups say, as laborers have begun to demand higher pay and better conditions.

Geoffrey Crothall, spokesman for the China Labor Bulletin, a nonprofit advocacy group in Hong Kong seeking collective bargaining and other protections for workers in mainland China, said workers in China had become increasingly emboldened.

“They’re more willing to stand up for their rights, to stand up to injustice,” he said.

The same Taiyuan factory was the site of a brief strike during a pay dispute last March, Hong Kong media reported then.

Sources:
ZeroHedge
NYTimes
I4U News