ALL ABOUT FOXCONN IN INDIA — BOOSTED MANUFACTURING IN TN, UNDER SCANNER FOR LABOUR PRACTICES
New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has asked the Tamil Nadu government for a detailed labour report on Foxconn after a Reuters investigation revealed that the electronics manufacturer deliberately excludes married women from jobs at its iPhone assembly plant in Sriperumbudur.
ThePrint had earlier reported that unmarried women with graduate degrees are the preferred workforce for electronics manufacturing in Sriperumbudur, and the first question asked at job interviews is whether the prospective candidates are married or not.
Taiwan-headquartered Foxconn, the largest supplier of Apple iPhones, started manufacturing the latest iPhone 15 in Sriperumbudur in 2023, with India participating in the assembly of the latest iPhones for the first time.
Foxconn set up its first factory in Tamil Nadu in 2017. Since then, the company has expanded its operations from assembling iPhones for Apple and other brands like Xiaomi. In May this year, Foxconn signed a deal with Google to manufacture Pixel and drones in India.
Its presence in Tamil Nadu has thrown the spotlight on the electronics manufacturing capacities of the state and made it a hub in India. Foxconn has also been instrumental in attracting more foreign investors and Fortune 500 companies, particularly other Taiwanese manufacturing giants like Feng Tay and Pou Chen, to the region as part of the global China+1 strategy.
Foxconn’s history in India
Known internationally as Foxconn, the Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd. is the largest contract manufacturer of electronics globally and one of the largest employers worldwide. It manufactures everything from iPhones and Kindles to Nintendo DS and PlayStation consoles. Its clients include Google, Apple, Sony, Amazon, Dell, Microsoft, Cisco, and Intel.
Foxconn was established in Taiwan in 1974 and has since expanded to 24 countries, where it has opened 137 campuses and offices, with the majority of them in East Asia. Foxconn is also present in Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and India.
Foxconn officially set up shop in Sriperumbudur, barely two hours outside Chennai, to manufacture iPhones in 2017.
The Sriperumbudur SEZ has grown since 2005 to house several industrial parks, mainly manufacturing electronics and automobiles. Foxconn is the largest occupant of the Sriperumbudur SEZ, taking up 150 acres. On the other hand, Dell has 50 acres, Samsung covers 80 acres, and Flextronics possesses 100 acres.
Foxconn also employs roughly 30% of its 70,000-strong workforce in this SEZ, according to the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT). The Reuters investigation found that Foxconn “systematically excluded” married women from this workforce on account of more “family responsibilities” than unmarried women and cultural practices.
It’s not the first time Foxconn has come under the scanner for its labour practices in India. In 2021, a food poisoning outbreak made Foxconn employees at the Sriperumbudur facility hit the streets in protest. At the time, many workers found themselves black-listed from further employment, and numerous working women left Sriperumbudur.
After the incident, the factory was closed for a month. At the time, a Tamil Nadu government investigation found several safety risks and multiple labour violations at the Sriperumbudur facility, reported by ThePrint and TIME. Foxconn reportedly addressed these concerns under the oversight of Apple, and its phased reopening began in January 2022.
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Foxconn’s female workforce
Of the 14.9 lakh registered women workers across India, 42 percent currently work in factories in Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu has emerged as a manufacturing hub and a preferred destination for foreign companies, partly because it offers social infrastructure. Its huge female workforce is part of this draw, as it ticks off the diversity requirements of most companies.
According to the state planning commission data, women’s participation in service and manufacturing is extremely high in Tamil Nadu, with 64 percent working in this sector compared to the national average of 43 percent, Gujarat’s 44 percent, and Maharashtra’s 35 percent.
There’s also a significant sectoral shift away from agriculture.
Young, educated working women also seek employment in electronics manufacturing. Foxconn’s brand, for instance, is highly sought after despite its reputation for being a tough factory floor. Many women graduates with engineering degrees wind up on Foxconn’s factory floor. Those who are not graduates have at least participated in skill development programmes offered by the Tamil Nadu government for a chance at companies such as Foxconn.
Foxconn’s women employees earn between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 a month. ThePrint had earlier reported that the women’s main complaints at Foxconn had been health problems such as back pain as a result of sitting on steel chairs for hours on end, bent over a conveyor belt, and spondylitis in some cases. They also had said that taking a sick day means losing a day’s pay, and if they take three days off in a row, they are termed ‘absconders’.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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2024-06-27T14:25:59Z dg43tfdfdgfd