Foxconn has been systematically denying jobs to married women at its India iPhone assembly plant on grounds that increased burden of family responsibilities after marriage and childbirth “increases risk factors” of hiring them, a Reuters investigation has found.
The news agency was also informed by hiring agents and Foxconn HR sources that jewellery worn by married Hindu women also interferes with production.
More than 35,000 people are employed at Foxconn’s iPhone assembly plant in Sriperumbudur, near the city of Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Why the exclusion of married women?
Reuters said that S.Paul, a former human-resources executive at Foxconn India said Foxconn typically doesn’t hire married women because of “cultural issues” and societal pressures.
The company’s view was that there were “many issues post-marriage,” Paul told Reuters, pointing at childbirth.
Risk factors increase when you hire married women.
Other people that Reuters spoke to said that the Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer also harboured concerns that married Hindu women wore metal toe rings known in southern India as ‘metti’ and necklaces called ‘thaali’ to signify their bond of marriage and these ornaments could interfere with the manufacturing process because the women would not remove them.
“Electrostatic discharge could occur when metals come into contact with phone components, potentially damaging them,” one current and one former Foxconn HR executive said in the report.
Flouting own code
While Indian law does not bar companies from discriminating in hiring based on marital status, Apple’s and Foxconn’s policies prohibit such practice in their supply chains.
Foxconn’s code states it is committed to a workforce free of “unlawful discrimination,” and that the company and its suppliers should not discriminate over marital status, gender and other factors in hiring.
Apple’s code for suppliers states that they and their subsidiaries, as well as any subcontractors, should not discriminate against any worker based on age, gender, marital status and other matters.
In response to queries from Reuters, Apple and Foxconn acknowledged lapses in hiring practices in 2022 and said they had worked to address the issues.
However, they refuted the specific allegations of discrimination surrounding its Sriperumbudur plant which, according to Reuters, took place over 2023 and ’24.
Foxconn also said that in its latest round of hiring, almost 25% of the hired women were married, without specifying the number or where they were employed.
Discrimination in hiring casting a shadow on ‘Make in India’?
According to a Bloomberg report, Apple makes 1 in 7, or 14% of its I-phones in India through Foxconn and aims to increase this share to 25% by 2027 or 2028, in a bid to develop an alternative manufacturing base in India amid geopolitical tensions between the US and China.
For the Narendra Modi-led Indian government, India-made I-phones are the face of Modi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative and such discriminatory practices cast a shadow over the fructification of his promises.
Even though Foxconn employs thousands of women in India, discrimination on the basis of marital status risks undercutting Modi’s aims to remove societal impediments that prevent many Indian women from getting jobs.
Indian govt reacts, seeks report from state labour department
A day after the report was published, the union ministry of labour and employment took cognisance of it asking for a detailed report from the Tamil Nadu state department of labour.
The ministry report said:
Section 5 of the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 clearly stipulates no discrimination to be made while recruiting men and women workers. As the state government is the appropriate authority for the enforcement and administration of the provisions of the Act, hence the report has been sought from the state government.
Foxconn not new to controversies
The Taiwanese manufacturer has earlier too come under scrutiny for its culture and work environment, notably in China, where it runs the biggest iPhone factory in Zhengzhou with 200,000 workers.
A decade ago, a spate of suicides by Foxconn employees in China prompted questions from their families and labour rights groups about work conditions even as Foxconn attributed the deaths to workers’ personal problems, and set up counselling hotlines, Reuters said.
In India, the same Sriperumbudur plant saw breakout of protests in December 2021 causing production to halt for a brief period after more than 250 workers suffered food poisoning.
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