India’s Foxconn iPhone facility to reopen Jan 12

Foxconn, Apple Inc’s supplier, announced it would reopen its iPhone facility on January 12, in Southern India, according to Reuters.

Late Friday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin informed the state assembly for the area that the plant will resume work on Wednesday of this week, according to K Selvaperunthagai, a member of the assembly.

The Big Tech giant revealed on Monday that it would continue to examine Foxconn’s India facility demeanor, highlighting it will keep probing into its conditions and policies with its workers’ dormitories and dining spaces, as well as independent auditors.

The closing came after protests rose following a food poisoning incident of almost 250 employees in the Sriperumbudur-based space. This resulted in heavy protests rising against the facility demanding fair workers’ health policies.

“Workers will start to return gradually as soon as we are certain our standards are being met in every dormitory and dining area,” the iOS developer said in a statement.

As for Foxconn, the electronics company has been manufacturing iPhone 12 units for Apple and assessing iPhone 13 production in its Sriperumbudur plant.

While this is the only facility Foxconn has in India, Apple, on the other hand, has eight different suppliers in the country.

Production will resume with more than 100 workers – noting that it was initially working with a capacity of 17,000 employees before being forcefully closed on December 18, 2021. In parallel, it could take more than two months before fully resuming production.

“We have implemented a range of corrective actions to ensure this cannot happen again and a rigorous monitoring system to ensure workers can raise any concerns they might have, including anonymously,” Foxconn said in a statement.

Both Apple and Foxconn refrained from providing an accurate date for resuming production.

Deemed the “Detroit of Asia,” Tamil Nadu is India’s most industrialized region, with more than 70 million residents, with some of the biggest global companies using its factories, such as BMW, Daimler, Hyundai, Nissan, and Renault.

According to Reuters, Selvaperunthagai said that the state’s authorities are not willing to accept any form of hostility rising from working terms for such facilities. He further revealed governmental plans to build a hostel facility to hold tens of thousands of employees from different sectors.

This will help the state government attend to matters related to dining spaces and dormitories standards.