Apple is expected to take the violence at the Wistron plant in Bengaluru seriously and conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. At the same time, the state government may go all out to safeguard its image as an investor-friendly state to woo further investments in the state.
Currently, the state government is dealing with two major worker-related issues: The current ongoing strike at the Toyota Kirloskar Motor plant near Bengaluru and the recent violence at the Wistron manufacturing unit near Kolar. Related reports point out that the major issue behind the violence was related to the payment of overtime dues to the workers.
“I feel that Apple is very proactive about such matters and the investigation is expected to bring out the true picture as to what brewed behind the violence. Wistron should have tried to solve the issues internally if such a thing was happening. It should have tried to contain any resentment on part of the workers. If such incidents are repeated again in the state it may spoil the image of Karnataka as an investor-friendly state. However such incidents will not dent the overall image of India as an investor-friendly country,” remarked Alok Shende of Ascentius Consulting.
Experts point out that it was the mismanagement of the Taiwanese firm Wistron that may have caused the issue to aggravate. “This could have been a fall out of the COVID-19 lockdown. To recover from that, the Wistron management may have [set] overstretched production targets and that would have led to unrealistic over time from the workers. Even if the Apple investigation points out to any loopholes the state government may try its best to keep a low profile on it as it would not like to dent its investment-friendly image,” pointed out Subramanyam Sreenivasaiah the CEO at Ascent HR.
Experts have also pointed out that the government is trying to hush up the whole thing. “The government will try to persuade Apple not to [make] public the findings of the internal investigation. I feel that it is the Wistron management that had failed to solve the contract workers issue at the plant. It is still very unclear as to how they overlooked such kind of frustration among the workers. Apple should probe such mismanagement and take strict action against the Wistron management in India," pointed out B.S. Murthy, CEO of LeadershipCapital Consulting.
"Going forward the Wistron management should come forward and ensure that proper compliance is in place in the plant that includes the payment of overtime and salaries to the workers so that such kinds of incidents are not repeated again,” he said.
He added that there have been some serious lapses on part of the Wistron management and internal sources have pointed out that the management was trying to bring in the Chinese work model at its plant near Bengaluru.
“There has also been no transparency as to how the staffing firms that Wistron management had employed were managing the salaries and other overtime payment to the workers. At the same time the Wistron plant does not have any workers union as the contract workers are fully controlled and exploited by the staffing firms, a fact that has been overlooked by the Wistron management,” added Murthy.
An initial investigation into the working conditions at the plant, accessed by Reuters, found that An initial investigation into the working conditions at the plant, accessed by Reuters, found issues in how Wistron maintained employment records. Employees also say their overtime salaries were not paid. Apple is also conducting its own audit to find whether Wistron violated supplier guidelines.
Meanwhile, the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) has expressed its deep concern on the violent incident taking place at Wistron plant near Bengaluru. “Quick consultative process should be initiated to resolve the issue since the production model followed by Apple—subcontracting production to carefully selected ancillary units has a huge scope in India and a few other electronic giants are proposing to relocate into India using this production model,” said Sandeep Narula, the Chairman of ESC.
He remarked that when plans are afoot for replicating mobile phone experience into other segments of electronics and hardware and many Indian companies are coming forward to adopt this model of production to scale up India’s electronics production capacity, it is important that the incident precipitated at the Wistron is immediately addressed and steps are taken to avoid such situations in the future.
Besides the iPhone, Wistron also manufactures IT products for Lenovo and Microsoft, among others. The Wistron plant assembles the latest version of the iPhone SE. Wistron has received approval for incentives under the government’s production-linked incentive plan. It is also being reported that as many as six staffing were supplying and managing the manpower at the Wistron plant and maybe blacklisted in the future.
