Taiwan’s Foxconn shuts Chennai plant after workers fall ill from alleged pesticide spray
By ANIWednesday, July 28, 2010
LONDON - Taiwan’s electronics component manufacturer Foxconn, has temporarily shut down a mobile phone components manufacturing factory in Chennai after about 250 workers fell sick, possibly from a pesticide sprayed at the facility.
“The Chennai factory was shut temporarily on Monday to allow it to be checked and cleared by the relevant local authorities,” the BBC quoted the company, as saying in a statement.
“Spraying of pesticide could be the reason,” it added.
The factory in Chennai city makes mobile telephone parts.
The workers fell sick last week after experiencing giddiness and nausea in the factory. hey were taken to Sri Ramachandra Medical College and a Hospital at Porur, where nearly 30 of them remained for observation on Monday, the company said.
There have been concerns over working conditions at Foxconn factories. In 2009, ten staff killed themselves at its plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Labor activists have linked the suicides to unduly harsh conditions at the plant, where more than 300,000 people are employed. (ANI)
