14 DAY TRIAL // Foxconn is reportedly looking to recruit no less than 20,000 workers that will be tasked with assembling the next-generation iPhone 5. At the same time, hundreds are going on strike because Foxconn allegedly failed to compensate them properly.
Reports from The China Morning News and M.I.C. Gadget reveal that “Foxconn in Tai Yuan is now building a new base for iPhone 5 production.”
An insider at Tai Yuan Foxconn tells the press that, “As long as they meet the basic standards, (we’ll) take as many as possible.”
The news comes just as other reports say that hundreds of Foxconn workers from a factory in Shanxi Province in northern China have gone on strike.
The strike is said to be taking place at a factory in the Xiaodian district of the provincial capital Tai Yuan.
The protesters reportedly said that Foxconn had promised to increase their pay, whereas only the managers and the technicians got compensated. The entry-level workers thus went o strike.
The generally well connected M.I.C. Gadget specifically notes that “Foxconn has already received orders for the production of iPhone 5,” and that the company will handle as much as 85 percent of the production, which comes down to about 57 million handsets a year.
As for the Tai Yuan base, it will reportedly become the main manufacturing plant of the iPhone 5.
Foxconn has been heavily scrutinized for the way it treats its workers. There have been numerous reports saying that the company offers preferential treatment, depending on the worker's rank.
The low-end workers (so to speak) - those who handle the actual assembly process of Apple’s iDevices - are said to be “discarded” once they can no longer reach their quota. One staffer once reportedly said that Foxconn treats women like men, and men like machines.
It is important to note that these reports are highly debatable, and that such claims are not consistent among Foxconn workers in general.