One of the major suppliers for Apple, Foxconn, has stopped production today as a mass brawl broke out between its staff and security personnel. The Chinese factory that makes many of the world’s leading smartphone and technology parts has shut down in light of the mass brawl involving over 200 people.
Foxconn released a statement late on Sunday night, saying: “a personal dispute between several employees escalated into an incident involving 2,000 workers at approximately 11pm last night in a privately managed dormitory near our manufacturing facility in Taiyuan in Shanxi province.”
It’s been reported that over 40 workers were injured in the altercation and that the police had to be brought in to subdue the fight. The fight was brought under control in the end by an estimated 5,000 policemen who were deployed to contain it.
A senior government official from Taiyuan City was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency as saying that three of the injured people were in a serious condition. The official also said that an initial investigation had found that the fighting had been a clash between workers from Shandong Province and Henan Province.
Foxconn said that the dispute did not appear to have been work-related but with the factory and Foxconn name repeatedly involved in many controversies, including a high suicide rate, it is not good news for one of Apple’s biggest parts suppliers.
The factory where the fight broke out was the Taiyuan factory that employs around 79,000 workers and produces component parts used in the assembling of iPhone 5 smartphone handsets.
The BBC has supposed footage of the mass fight available to watch and has stated that “comments on a Chinese microblogging site suggested the fight broke out after security guards beat a worker.”
We get a feeling that Apple will be having some stern words with the folks over at Foxconn and maybe some help with the old PR!
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