Report: Riots break out at
Foxconn factory in China
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By Ed Flanagan, NBC News
Reports early Monday from
China suggest that a mass disturbance or riots may have broken out at a Foxconn
factory in the Chinese city of Taiyuan.
It is still unclear what
exactly happened, but posts on China’s popular twitter-like service, Weibo,
from users in the area show photographs and video of large numbers of police in
and around the factory – many in riot gear – blocking off throngs of people.
Other photos show debris
strewn around the Foxconn compound and in one case, an overturned guard tower.
According to popular tech
blog engadget, the disturbance kicked off after Foxconn security guards
allegedly hit a worker around 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Censors in China have
reportedly already started deleting pictures from the scene.
This is not the first time
that Foxconn has had problems with its Taiyuan facility, which is reportedly
responsible for the fabrication of the back plate of the immensely popular new
iPhone 5. In March, strikes broke out there after workers did not receive a pay
raise they had reportedly been promised.
Meanwhile, Foxconn’s
Chengdu plant in Sichuan province also has dealt with riots. In June, scores of
Foxconn workers there got into a fight with a local restaurant owner that had
to be broken up by police.
Foxconn is the Taiwanese
electronics manufacturer responsible for much of the current production and
assembly of Apple’s popular line of products as well as a wide variety of
popular tech toys ranging from laptops to gaming consoles.
But Foxconn has been under
fire for years for its tough working conditions, including long hours, low
wages and strict rules on representation. The company has also dealt with a
string of suicides at its plants across China, which led to the company in 2010
installing anti-jump nets to prevent more suicide attempts.
The company has taken
steps to improve working conditions in its factories by reducing work hours and
raising wages for its front-line workers.
Still, perhaps wary of the
continued negative publicity that has plagued one of its primary manufacturers
over the years, Apple recently took steps to diversify its portfolio of
producers, recently awarding much of the manufacturing of its new iteration of
the iPad to another Taiwanese company, Pegatron.
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