The vandalism that erupted in the wee hours of 12 December at Wistron’s iPhone manufacturing plant in Kolar, Karnataka was an inevitable inflection point. For months until then, contract employees had approached company HR and even district deputy commissioner C Satyabhama over exploitative labour practices. They’d complained about an increase in work hours from eight to 12 hours without overtime payment (which was promised), falsified attendance records, and non-payment of incentives for working on festivals (also promised). All complaints seem to have been cold-shouldered by the Wistron management.
In October this year, over 100 employees had approached Kolar DC Sathyabhama …
Roshni is a features writer and former editor of The Morning Context's Chaos team. Her career spans The Ken, Reuters, the Hindustan Times and DNA. She is a recipient of the UNFPA Laadli award and was shortlisted for the RedInk Awards 2016 for her story on Mumbai’s leprosy colonies. Her far-flung ideas would sometimes drive our editor-in-chief Ashish up the wall, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way (even if he didn’t admit it).
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