Indian workers allege Apple contractor paying slave wages
A riot broke out last Saturday at a Bangalore, India factory owned by Taiwanese tech firm Wistron. The company has been contracted out by Apple to manufacture the iPhone in India. Shortly after the night shift ended, the majority of the plant’s 2,000 employees went on a rampage, causing several million dollars worth of damage to company property.
Sources told the Times of India that the riot was over remittance of salaries. Employees were allegedly not being paid what was promised when they were initially hired.
“While an engineering graduate was promised Rs 21,000 ($285) per month, his/her salary had reduced to Rs 16,000 ($217) and, subsequently, to Rs 12,000 ($163) in recent months,” one employee alleged. “Non-engineering graduates’ monthly salary had reduced to Rs 8,000 ($109) in the recent months. The salary amount being credited to our accounts have been reducing, and it was frustrating to see this.”
On the Friday evening, employees began discussing their salaries. Some were allegedly being paid as low as Rs 500 ($6.80) per month.
To really put this into perspective, the World Bank considers someone to be below the extreme poverty line if they make less than $1.90/day. This is regardless of an individual country’s cost of living.
Apple’s iPhone 12 starts at $699 USD to purchase, and costs up to $1,399 for the fully kitted out Pro model. As of last year, TechInsight had analyzed the iPhone 11 Pro, and estimated its total material costs to be about $490 USD. iFixit had come to a similar figure for the iPhone XS Max. Apple currently has a $2.15 trillion market cap, making it the most valuable company in America.
Apple has said that they are currently investigating whether Wistron violated supplier guidelines. “We have teams on the ground and have immediately launched a detailed investigation at Wistron’s Narasapura facility,” the company said in an email to MSNBC. Wistron is one of Apple’s top global suppliers.
The Silicon Valley giant is certainly no stranger to controversies involving treatment of its workers. Contractor Foxconn came under fire several years ago after it was alleged Chinese employees were committing suicide over poor working conditions.
This brings the ugly side of globalization into stark focus. It may surprise people to know that Apple doesn’t actually manufacture anything. Nor do most name brand electronics companies. Work is contracted out to third parties who own facilities in third world countries. Places where workers can be paid below a living wage, while at the same time allowing large corporations to completely wash their hands of any potential labour issues. Apple has promised to investigate their contractors many times before, but the same problems seem to keep cropping up.
Part of the irony here is that Apple has been one of the major Silicon Valley companies to cry about alleged racial injustices in the United States, while at the same time paying brown people in sweat shops what amounts to a poverty wage. It should really give you pause whenever a big company decides to virtue signal. No corporation, nor government, ever does anything out of the goodness of their heart.
