Karnataka iPhone Plant Violence: Contradictory To Complaints, Labour Officer Insists Workers Were Paid Regularly

Days after the iPhone manufacturing unit of Taiwan-based Wistron Corp in Karnataka was vandalised allegedly by the workers over the claims of non-payment of salaries, Labour Commissioner Akram Pasha claimed that the wages were paid duly to the employees, and there was just a four-day delay this month.

The data showed four days delay in salary distribution for this month, Pasha said. His statement contradicts the allegations raised by the workers, of salary not being paid by the management for months, as the report showed otherwise.

"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," India Today quoted Pasha as saying.

The officer said the delay was caused this month due to a bug in the new software system that the company had recently shifted to in October. Earlier, the company followed the biometric attendance and wages were paid for the days present.

However, there has been no clearance over the allegations of overtime working and discrepancies in the promised salary and the given one, as mentioned by the workers.

The employees had alleged that the company had hired factory workers in six different firms on a sub-contractual basis and promised to pay ₹16,000 per month. But when they started working, the employees were informed that they would receive only ₹12,000.

Responding to the report of increasing the labour strength from 5,000 to 10,000 recently, Pasha said that it may not be true as the company followed the due process and trained all its labours before taking them into the factory.

Employees had said the issue of non-payment and overtime working has been ongoing for over six months. They had raised their concerns with the management but got no concrete response.

An FIR has been registered against 7,000 unknown people including 5,000 contract workers in connection with the vandalism. So far, the Police have arrested 160 people. The arrests were made based on the CCTV footage and checking the list of workers in the shift.

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