38 2GM Saturday January 1 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
For weeks, workers battled wave after
wave of illness as they toiled to build
iPhones destined for customers around
the world. Factory bosses promised
action as workers suffered debilitating
cramps and sickness. Yet nothing
changed.
In the middle of last month, 150
workers who had dinner at the Apple
factory in Sriperumbudur, near
Chennai, southeast India, were taken to
hospital with vomiting and diarrhoea.
A further 100 needed medical treat-
ment for what doctors recorded as an
outbreak of dysentery.
That was when something snapped.
Two days later hundreds of workers
marched against conditions at the
camps that house an estimated 15,000
workers. For hours protesters blocked
the main road into the vast industrial
park, demanding better conditions.
Foxconn, the Taiwanese company in
charge of the estate, suspended
operations on December 18, promising
improvements, after Apple put the site
“on probation” — meaning all orders
were on hold.
The controversy is the latest in a
familiar line to hit Foxconn, the biggest
private employer in China, and Apple,
the world’s most valuable company.
A series of suicides in 2010 at Fox-
conn’s Longhua science and techno-
logy park in Shenzhen, southern China,
led to international condemnation, and
promises to improve conditions.
More than a decade later, the com-
pany has promised the same in India.
When The Times visited the area this
week, Sorja, one of those who fell ill,
described conditions at the factory.
The 19-year-old female worker told
of windowless dormitories housing up
to a dozen people with no access to
water or sanitation, intense work and
long hours for the equivalent of £100 a
month — far less than a maid can make
— rotting vegetables and weevil-infest-
ed rice prepared in rat-infested outdoor
kitchens overflowing with rubbish.
A 21-year-old worker told the Hindu-
stan Times: “In a room where more than
five people can’t sleep, 15 of us sleep onWorkers blocked roads to protest
against conditions at Apple’s factory
SriperumbudurChennaiBay of
BengalINDIA Five milesNo food, no water,
no hope at iPhone
factory in India
the floor. We stick to one another.
Water is opened for us only one and a
half hours before our shift.
“If we don’t save water for later use,
we cannot use the toilets. Some women
stay hungry throughout the day. There
have been worms in our food. We sent
photos to the supervisor but no action
was taken.”
Other workers told The Times that
they were scared of losing their jobs if
they spoke out. Even before the protest,
they were watched constantly at the
factory and in their living quarters.
Sorja would speak only under an
assumed name. The seven or eight
barracks where workers, mostly female,
live and sleep are scattered around the
site, patrolled by guards who block
anyone seeking a closer look.
One guard spoke briefly. “More than
four, sometimes six or seven, women
sleep in the same 12ft by 12ft room,” he
said. “There isn’t much ventilation. The
toilets haven’t been flushing because
there has been no water.”
Sondar Rajan, the national secretary
of the Centre of Indian Unions in
Chennai, condemned conditions in the
Foxconn factory.
“There is no union, no protection for
workers,” he said. “Some women told
me there are ten of them to a room. The
meals are cooked from the worst poss-
ible rotting vegetables that should be
thrown away. The one time I managed
to speak to one woman, she said it felt
like a prison.”
Apple and Foxconn promised to
improve conditions at the factory after
local government inspectors declared
the barracks unfit for use.
Tamil Nadu's local government said
that it had insisted that the company
provided a minimum of four litres of
drinking water per worker each day as
well as enough for washing, and a
reliable electricity supply.
Apple said: “We found that some of
the dormitory accommodations and
dining rooms being used for employees
do not meet our requirements. We are
working with the supplier to ensure a
comprehensive set of corrective ac-
tions are rapidly implemented.”
Foxconn said that it was “very sorry
for the issue our employees experi-
enced”. The company said that it was
“taking immediate steps to enhance the
facilities and services we provide at the
remote dormitory accommodations”.
It added: “We are also restructuring
our local management team and our
management systems to ensure we can
achieve and maintain the high stan-
dards that are needed.” The company
promised that workers would be paid in
full until the dormitories were im-
proved.
Sorja said that she had no intention
of returning. “My family needs the
money,” she said. “That’s why I went
there in the first place. But my parents
have said they aren’t sending me back.”30,000 flee their homes
India
Amrit Dhillon Delhi
Winds of up to 105mph have driven
unprecedented wildfires across
Colorado, forcing tens of thousands of
residents to flee and destroying
hundreds of homes and businesses.
Some lost everything as the flames
tore through the suburbs of Boulder
City, with officials blaming the scale of
the disaster on a combination of dry
conditions and strong winds. They said
fallen power lines were likely to have
started the blaze.
The fire destroyed about 1,600 acres
in a matter of hours, wrecking houses
and forcing 30,000 people to evacuate
as an orange haze hung over the land
and smoke filled the streets.
A hotel was burnt and a shopping
centre was gutted when flames ripped
through an area the size of a football
field in a few seconds.
Officials said that 370 homes weredestroyed in the town of Superior and
210 may have been lost in Old Town
Superior. At least seven people have
been injured but officials said that it was
a “miracle” that no deaths had been
reported by last night.
Joe Pelle, the Boulder County sheriff,
said that given the scale of the fire it was
“unbelievable when you look at the
devastation that we don’t have a list of
100 missing persons”.
“This is the kind of fire we can’t fight
head-on,” Pelle said. “We actually had
deputy sheriffs and firefighters in areas
that had to pull out because they just
got overrun.”
Jared Polis, the state’s governor, said
that gusts propelled the blaze “down a
football field in a matter of seconds”.
He said: “We might have our very
own new year’s miracle on our hands, if
it holds up that there was no loss of life.
[But] there’s no way to quantify in any
financial way the price of a loss — of
losing the chair that was handed downUnited States
Keiran Southern Los AngelesJust how low
will Delhi go?
Behind the story
T
he reports recall the
horrors of the industrial
revolution 200 years ago
— workers toiling in
awful conditions for
long hours with terrible pay
(Amrit Dhillon writes).
Yet they are emerging from
factories run by the mega-
corporations of the 21st century.
Apple promised to improve
conditions after its experience in
China, where workers threw
themselves to their deaths in
despair at their back-breaking
work and low pay. And yet the
company is now the subject of
similar accusations in India.
As to why, the answer appears
simple: companies can get away
with it until they can’t. The
promise of immediate remedies
in Sriperumbudur might be
encouraging but they have been
made only in reaction to a crisis
that has come to international
attention. It also remains to be
seen what will be improved.
Care is needed in a country
such as India, where Apple’s sub-
contractors will be keen to cut
costs at the expense of welfare
and where workers are poorly
educated, impoverished and with
no resources to protect
themselves against exploitation.
The buck stops with Foxconn
and Apple. But the government
also bears responsibility. Once
the protests made headlines,
local inspectors reported that
conditions were bad. Where were
they earlier? Surely no factory or
dormitory can open without
passing a set of agreed standards.
The government hopes that its
Made in India policy will turn the
country into a manufacturing
hub comparable to China. The
policy is well-intentioned. But it
should not involve a race to the
bottom at the cost of its people’s
basic human rights.