Thousands of iPhones looted during Wistron factory attack by employees over salary dues

An iPhone manufacturing plant run by Taiwanese tech giant Wistron Corporation at Narsapura came under attack on Saturday from its employees over salary dues. 

According to TOI report, during the violence thousands of iPhones were stolen and the property was damaged, which led to a total loss of around Rs 437 crore, the manufacturing plant in its complaint had stated. Karnataka labour minister Shivaram Hebbar had condemned the attack on the company.

The iPhone plant established at 43 acres at Narasapura industrial area in Kolar that is around 60 km from Bengaluru. Wistron was allocated 43 acres at Narasapura industrial area from the state government after it proposed to invest around Rs 2,900 crore and assurance to give employment to over 10,000 people.

The Narasapura facility is being used to manufacture Apple's smartphone iPhoneSE, Internet of Things (IOT) products and biotech devices.

A majority of the nearly 2,000 employees, who were exiting the facility after completing their night shift, went on a rampage destroying furniture, assembly units and even attempted to set fire to vehicles.

Kolar district Deputy Commissioner of, C. Satyabhama confirmed to that a section of angry employees went on rampage over salary dues. 

The police said that employees working in this plant were angry that the company was not paying the amount that was promised to them at the time of joining.

"While an engineering graduate was promised Rs 21,000 per month, his/her salary had reduced to Rs 16,000 after the prolonged lockdown and subsequently citing the pandemic as reason it was slashed to Rs 12,000 further in the recent months. While non-engineering graduates' monthly salary was reduced to around Rs 8,000 from around Rs 15,000. The salary amount being credited to their accounts had been reducing and this seem to have triggered the unrest at least our prima facie investigations suggest that," the police said.