Apple has put supplier Wistron on probation, saying on Saturday it would not award the Taiwanese contract manufacturer new business until it addressed the way workers were treated at its southern India plant.
Sankalp Phartiyal and Chandini Monnappa for Reuters:
Early findings of an Apple audit in the wake of violence at the Wistron plant in India’s Karnataka state showed violations of its ‘Supplier Code of Conduct’, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant said in a statement.
Contract workers angry over unpaid wages destroyed property, gear and iPhones on Dec. 12, causing millions of dollars in losses to Wistron and forcing it to shut the plant. Apple said Wistron had failed to implement proper working hour management processes, which “led to payment delays for some workers in October and November.”
Wistron on Saturday admitted some workers at the plant in Karnataka’s Narasapura had not been paid properly or on time, and it was removing a top executive overseeing its India business.
“Our main objective is to make sure all the workers are treated with dignity and respect, and fully compensated promptly,” Apple said, adding that it continued to investigate issues at the plant, which is located some 50 km outside of the southern tech hub of Bengaluru and assembles one iPhone model.
MacDailyNews Take: The ramp up obviously overwhelmed Wistron and Apple is now taking the appropriate corrective action by putting the supplier on probabtion. It’s a shame it took a riot for Wistron and Apple to notice the growing pains and other issues. Hopefully, lesson learned, it won’t come anywhere near that in the future should issues arise.
It is common for companies to have full time employees monitor outsourcing facilities. Maybe Apple have scaled back that type of coverage due to COVID-19.
Clearly this needs to be monitored more closely to ensure the third party organization is operating properly and treating its personal ethically.
Bad boy Winston. Go to your room.
It is sad that it falls to a computer company to tell a nation to treat its own people well.
It’s not just India. Wage theft is fairly common here in the great ol’ US of A, too — with trucking firms not paying drivers for their time, but rather by the mile, or even Apple, which had to be sued to pay employees for security checks after their shifts had ended but before they were allowed to leave the stores.
I have said this before and say it again. Apple should not be in India, it is a difficulty and very unfair place to do business in. To pay slave labour wages for big profit is not right for Apple to do.