Foxconn Technology, a major supplier to some of the world’s electronics giants, including Apple, said it closed one of its large Chinese plants early Monday after police were called in to break up a fight among factory employees.
A spokesman for the company said some people were injured and detained by the police after the disturbance escalated into a riot late Sunday. The company said the cause of the disturbance was still under investigation.
One Foxconn employee reached by telephone Monday afternoon, however, said the disturbance began when workers started brawling with security guards, and eventually led to a huge riot involving more than 1,000 workers. Foxconn said no property was destroyed or damaged.
Unconfirmed photographs and video circulated on social networking sites, purporting to be from the factory, showed smashed windows, riot police and large groups of workers milling about. The Foxconn plant, in the central Chinese city of Taiyuan, employs about 79,000 workers. China’s state-run news media said 5,000 police officers were called in to quell the riot.
A Foxconn spokesman declined to specify whether the Taiyuan facility made products for the Apple iPhone 5, which went on sale last week, but he said it supplied goods to many consumer electronics brands.
An employee Foxconn’s Taiyuan facility, however, said there were iPhone components made there. Most Apple related production, though, takes place in other parts of China, particularly in Sichuan and Henan province. Apple could not be reached for comment.
Foxconn said it employed about 1.1 million workers in China.
The disturbance is the latest to hit Foxconn, a key supplier of products to Apple and other global electronics companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Microsoft.
Foxconn, which is part of the Hon Hai Group of Taiwan, has been struggling to improve labor conditions at its China factories after reports about labor abuse and work safety violations.
Apple and Foxconn have worked together in the last year to improve conditions, raise pay and improve labor standards.
Disturbances at factories have become increasingly common in China, rights groups say, as laborers have begun to demand higher pay and better conditions.
Geoffrey Crothall, spokesman for the China Labor Bulletin, a nonprofit advocacy group in Hong Kong seeking collective bargaining and other protections for workers in mainland China, said workers in China had become increasingly emboldened.
“They’re more willing to stand up for their rights, to stand up to injustice,” he said.
The same Taiyuan factory was the site of a brief strike during a pay dispute last March, Hong Kong media reported then.
Social media postings suggested that some injuries might have occurred when people were trampled in crowds of protesters.
© 2012 The New York Times News Service
