Foxconn Denies Strike Rumours

Foxconn, the Taiwanese company responsible for manufacturing the iPhone 5, has denied claims that a Chinese factory has been hit by a “large-scale” strike.

According to a report by China Labour Watch (CLW), a group that previously claimed that Foxconn hired student “interns” during the school year, industrial action on Monday involved three to four thousand production workers at FoxConn’s Zhengzhou factory.

Foxconn says that over the last week,  it saw only two minor disputes and the production of Apple’s smartphone is on schedule.

Your word against mine

CLW says that  the strike was a response to a combination of issues. According to the  New York-based advocacy group, workers were angered by unreasonable demands for quality control and the requirement to work through the week-long National Day holiday.

These reports were confirmed by Chinese news agency Xinhua, which wrote of violent clashes between workers and management on Friday.

However, Foxconn has denied the industrial action ever happened. “Any reports that there has been an employee strike are inaccurate,” the company told Reuters, adding that “there has been no workplace stoppage in that facility or any other Foxconn facility and production has continued on schedule”.

The only disputes the company acknowledges happened in the previous week, and were “immediately addressed”. It also claims that staff offered to work on the National Day voluntarily, in exchange for triple pay.

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