Staff clueless on Foxconn closure

Chennai: Following Nokia, Foxconn, world’s largest contract manufacturer of mobile phones and electronics, is reported to be winding up its Chennai unit following lack of orders. Uncertainty looms large over the fate of 1300-odd employees emplyed in the factory, who are clueless about their fate. A statement from FIH Mobile Ltd, a mobile-product arm of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, trading as Foxconn Technology Group, said it would shut operations at its mobile-phone facility in India due to a change in its customer base.

“This action is also related to a restructuring being carried out of our India operations,” it said in a statement.“The facility in sout-hern India will shut down at end-December,” it said.
Foxconn has invested about Rs850 crore in India in India to make phones and components. Being a main supplier to Nokia, initially, it had two units Sriperu-mbudur HiTech SEZ and one inside Nokia SEZ. However, dwindling order flow had forced the company to close its Sriperu-mbudur units in the last couple of years which also saw its employee base dip to 1300-levels from 8000 at its peak period following various VRS schemes.

Though there are fears abound about lay-off and retrenchment, there has been no official communication to both government departments and employees so far, say union members.“When the company has not filed any exit application with the state government, how can the company retrench people without getting prior permission from the concerned departments,” asked S. Soun-dararajan, general secretary of CITU Tamil Nadu. “The Assistant Labour Commissioner has called the company and the union for a meeting tomorrow where a clear picture will emerge,” he added.

Loss of Foxconn will be the second biggest hit to the Sriperumbudur electronics SEZ which saw Nokia shut its operations on November 1. Questions now have been raised over the operations of other Nokia suppliers such as Salcomp, Perlos, Laird and Wintek, housed in the zone.