Flex India (Source: Flex)
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Workers at an Indian plant Apple Flex supplier organized a one-day a strike over wages, working conditions and the firm's refusal to recognize a union.
Flex makes chargers for Apple. While not the Cupertino company's best-known supplier, it is a huge multinational corporation that employs 172,000 people worldwide. The Tamil Nadu plant alone employs a total of 4,000 people.
The 4,000 people are a mix of full-time employees and contract workers, according to Reuters. According to Indian law, contractors cannot be employed in what is called essential activities and they did not join the strike.
It is unknown how many employees did this, but the report claims the number was in the hundreds. In addition, 750 people joined the Center of Indian Trade Unions, although Flex did not recognize it.
“As house rent, education fees and other expenses have increased,” the union told Flex in a letter seen by Reuters, “it is impossible to maintain a livelihood with the current salary.” The strike followed what the letter described as the failure of the workers and Flex to reach an amicable settlement over the issue of wage increases.
A one-day strike has officially been called, but union secretary E. Muthukumar said workers will return to the factory for the third and final shift of the day.
The strike at the Tamil Nadu plant comes after the regional government announced a $1.5 billion investment by international technology companies in the production of the iPhone.
