“When you have a working environment like Foxconn where workers are treated simply as units of production, essentially robots, not human beings… then sometimes violence is the only way out (and) you see minor disputes escalating into violence.”
Following the spate of suicides, Foxconn rolled out a series of measures, including wage hikes and safety nets outside buildings, and has since been expanding its workforce throughout China.
Numerous postings on the Sina Weibo microblog said the Taiyuan brawl was between factory security guards and workers.
“The facility was closed today, just today, in order for an investigation. It will be reopened tomorrow,” Simon Hsing, spokesman for Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai told AFP.
The company statement added: “The cause of this dispute is under investigation by local authorities and we are working closely with them in this process, but it appears not to have been work-related.”
A Taiyuan city government official said the unrest had “quietened down” and was not work-related. City police spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment.
In January, workers at a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, in central China, that makes Xbox game consoles for computer giant Microsoft “staged a workplace incident” over a plan to transfer staff, Foxconn said at the time.
About 45 workers resigned afterwards, the company added, offering few details.
