Indian officials visit Foxconn iPhone plant, question executives about hiring

NEW DELHI: Indian labour officers visited a Foxconn factory within the nation’s south this week and wondered executives about the company’s hiring practices, an reliable acknowledged, after Reuters reported that the main Apple dealer has been rejecting married females from iPhone meeting jobs.

A five-member crew of the federal authorities’s regional labour division visited the Foxconn factory attain Chennai, in Tamil Nadu pronounce, on Jul 1 and spoke to company directors and human resources officers, A Narasaiah, the regional labour commissioner, told Reuters by cell phone on Wednesday.

Foxconn didn’t at present answer to a ask of for observation, while Apple didn’t address questions from Reuters about the debate over with.

The inquiries attain after High Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities requested pronounce officers and the pronounce of enterprise of the federal authorities’s Regional Chief Labour Commissioner final week to manufacture detailed reports on the subject, following Reuters’ investigation into hiring practices on the manufacturing facility.

“We are collecting records, and contain requested the company to submit documents like company policies, recruitment policies” as wisely as proof of compliance with labour laws and records on maternity and retirement benefits, Narasaiah acknowledged. “They told us they set apart not seem like discriminating.”

Narasaiah acknowledged Foxconn told the labour officers the factory employs 41,281 people, at the side of 33,360 females. Of these females, some 2,750, or about 8 per cent, had been married, he acknowledged, citing Foxconn’s submission.

Foxconn didn’t damage down the staffing figures into inform areas corresponding to iPhone meeting, the place Reuters reported the discrimination modified into taking pronounce, Narasaiah acknowledged. He added that the labour inspectors interviewed 40 married females inner the plant, who raised no issues about discrimination.

Narasaiah acknowledged he within the meantime has no thought to ask Foxconn’s third-party hiring agents, who scout for candidates and produce them to the plant for interviews.

A Reuters investigation published final week chanced on Foxconn systematically excluded married females from meeting jobs at its main Indian iPhone plant on the grounds they contain more family tasks than their unmarried counterparts. Foxconn HR sources and third-party hiring agents cited family duties, being pregnant and increased absenteeism as causes for not hiring married females.

The reporting also chanced on that Taiwan-based Foxconn relaxes the note of not hiring married females all the draw through high-production sessions.

The legend has sparked debates on TV channels, newspaper editorials, and calls from opposition figures and females’s groups, at the side of inner Modi’s party, to examine the subject.

Responding to the Reuters investigation, Apple and Foxconn acknowledged lapses in hiring practices in 2022 and acknowledged they had worked to address the issues. The overall discriminatory practices documented by Reuters on the Tamil Nadu plant, on the different hand, took pronounce in 2023 and 2024. The firms didn’t address these cases.

Foxconn, in overall identified as Hon Hai Precision Trade, has previously acknowledged it “vigorously refutes allegations of employment discrimination consistent with marital space, gender, faith or another set apart.”

Apple has acknowledged all its suppliers, at the side of Foxconn, rent married females and all its suppliers, at the side of Foxconn, rent married females and “when issues about hiring practices had been first raised in 2022 we at present took action and worked with our dealer to habits monthly audits to title problems and make obvious that our high requirements are upheld.”

Indian law doesn’t bar firms from discriminating in hiring consistent with marital space, though Apple’s and Foxconn’s policies restrict such practices of their present chains.