iPhone’s manufacturing plant run by Wistron gets clean chit from labour department

The largescale violence and vandalism that broke out in the iPhone manufacturing unit run by Wistron in Karnataka Tuesday took a new twist with the labour department giving a clean chit to the company.

The labour department has found that contrary to claims of a four month delay, the firm had been regularly paying salaries to its employees and there was only a 4-day delay this month.

Reports further indicated that the four-day delay in salary payment was allegedly due to a bug in the software system.

Labour Commissioner Akram Pasha was quoted in the media as saying: "Only the police can investigate why this happened. We saw the data and there was only four days’ delay in salary distribution. Many claimed it was for several months but it wasn't there in the report."

The labour department has asked for more documents to investigate the matter and the company has sought one week’s time to revert.

On reports that the Taiwan-headquartered Wistron Corporation had doubled the labour strength from 5,000 to over 10,000 recently, the labour commissioner said, "It might not be true as the company has followed the due process and trained all its labours before taking them into the factory."

Wistron has now put the total loss at Rs 437.40 crore caused due to destruction of its facilities and looting of hundreds of iPhones.

Around 150 people have so far been arrested for arson and vandalism which broke out in the early hours of Saturday at the Wistron unit in Kolar near Bengaluru. Four FIRs have been registered by Kolar Police.

The company in its complaint said 5,000 contract labourers and about 2,000 unknown culprits carried out the vandalism at the facility.