How A Protest By Women Forced Change At iPhone's Indian Plant

Foxconn contracts out the staffing of the factory to labour brokers, who are also responsible for housing the workers- mostly women- employed there.

For women who assembled iPhones at a Foxconn plant in southern India, crowded dorms without flush toilets and food sometimes crawling with worms were problems to be endured for the paycheck.

But when tainted food sickened over 250 of the workers their anger boiled over, culminating in a rare protest that shut down a plant where 17,000 had been working.

A close look by Reuters at the events before and after the Dec. 17 protest casts a stark light on living and working conditions at Foxconn, a firm central to Apple's supply chain.

The tumult comes at a time when Apple is ramping up production of its iPhone 13 and shareholders are pushing the company to provide greater transparency about labour conditions at suppliers.