Two-Thousand Foxconn Workers Engaged in Violent Riot

Over 2,000 workers at a Foxconn factory in China rioted today, resulting in the temporary closure of the plant and, obviously, the stoppage of all work there. According to a BBC article, the riots broke out at the plant in Taiyuan, and that 5,000 police officers were sent in to quell the unrest. According to the article, 40 workers were injured, with three reported to be in critical condition.

The article notes that a Foxconn spokesperson claimed that the riot, said to have started as a fight near the factory dormitories, was unrelated to work at the plant. The article cites social networking messages from the area, however, that claim the riots stemmed from security guards having beaten a worker near to death. Other messages corroborated that possibility with claims that the violent outburst was targeting security guards.

Foxconn is a company that owns many plants throughout China that manufacture many of the West’s highest end gadgets and consumer products, including game consoles from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, and just about every Apple product there is. Readers may remember reports from earlier this year when 300 workers at a Foxconn plant manufacturing Xbox 360 consoles threatened mass suicide over poor working conditions. A few months later, an investigation found labor law violations in the Foxconn plants, leading to promises of reforms. It’s unclear what, if any, reforms have taken place, but this incident would seem to reveal that whatever has changed, there’s quite a ways to go.

Via BBC