Foxconn: factory is i-ok after strike reports

Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, which assembles Apple products, has rejected claims of strikes at a plant in China, saying there was no impact on production. This followed reports of thousands dropping tools. The Foxconn Technology Group said on Saturday that production was unaffected and that a strike had not hit a factory in Zhengzhou, central China, speaking instead of a "dispute" that had been resolved. Any reports that there has been an employee strike are inaccurate," Foxconn said in an email statement to the Reuters news agency. "There has been no workplace stoppage in that facility or any other Foxconn facility and production has continued on schedule." Speaking to the dpa agency, Foxconn spokesman Simon Hsing said "there is no so-called strike." The company's statement followed reports from the New York-based China Labor Watch group, saying that between 3,000 and 4,000 staff had gone on strike Friday. The advocacy group said the workers were responding to new quality guidelines and demands that they work through a week-long public holiday in China. China Labor Watch had said several production lines for the new iPhone 5 "were in a state of paralysis for the entire day" as a result, citing workers. Foxconn acknowledged small quarrels from October 1 and 2 in its email to Reuters, saying they were "isolated incidents and were immediately addressed and measures taken, including providing additional staff for the lines in question." The graft behind the gadgets The Taiwan-based giant Foxconn Technology Group is the world's largest contract maker of electronics, the assembly line labor behind names like Apple, Sony, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Nokia and Dell. Its factories in China employ over a million people in total. A large contingent of police was called out last month to contain a brawl among workers at a Foxconn plant in the northern Chinese city of Taiyuan. A string of at least 13 staff suicides in 2010 caught international attention, with activists blaming working conditions for the deaths.