A new wave of protests by employees of Foxconn highlights what are apparently still unmet employee demands at the giant Chinese contract manufacturer.

Brazilian site Tech Guru reports that a big number of workers at the Jundiaí, Brazil plant of Foxconn are warning of a massive strike if working conditions at the plant are not improved.

Among their complaints, according to the report, is lack of water, poor food and congested buses to the manufacturing facility.

The workers, reported to number over 2,500, apparently gave Foxconn ten days from this Monday when they met to take action regarding their demands.

Nonetheless, it is said by the report that the employees are optimistic that their demands will be met without the need to resort to a massive strike.

Foxconn assembles iPad and iPhone units in Brazil although the report from Tech Guru did not mention specifically if the workers who have threatened to go on strike were making iPhones or iPads.

Meanwhile, in a move eerily similar to a protest in January, Reuters reports that workers at a Foxconn facility in China warned that they will jump off the roof of a building in a Foxconn complex to their deaths if their demands were not heard.

The protest was organized in the Wuhan-based manufacturing facility of Foxconn, one of the biggest plants of the Chinese contract manufacturer.

According to the report, about 200 workers threatened to kill themselves at the plant, in a protest for higher pay.

Fortunately, it appears that the plan was not implemented.

According to a Foxconn spokesperson, the protesters were new workers in the Foxconn factory and the protest was about adjustment to their new line of work.

However, the Information Center for Human Rights told Reuters that the protesters planned the mass suicide because they reportedly were earning less in their new jobs at Foxconn than at their previous jobs.

Chinese police also reportedly got involved and the protest was called off.

Foxconn has had a long reputation of having poor working conditions for its employees with worker suicides marring the history of the company.

Its reputation is also not helped by moves from its top-tier executives such as when Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou reportedly likened his employees to animals.

This happened back in January, just after the threat of a mass suicide at a Foxconn plant was news just a few weeks earlier.

“Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache,” Gou is quoted as saying in a meeting with company Foxconn executives.

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd is the parent company of Foxconn and is based in Taiwan.

There have also been accidents in Foxconn plants resulting in the death of workers.

Foxconn is famous for building the popular Apple i-devices, but it also makes products for other tech industry heavyweights like Microsoft and Dell.

Riding on the back of massively-popular products, Apple keeps reporting record-breaking performance quarter after quarter.

Meanwhile, Apple and Foxconn have already promised to work to improve worker conditions at Foxconn plants as the two have come under fire for what is perceived as dire conditions for workers in manufacturing facilities of the Chinese giant.

By the end of last month, Apple accepted a set of recommendations of the U.S. Fair Labor Association which aim to improve working conditions at Foxconn.

These recommendations included protection of wages, improvement of employee representation and reducing of working hours.

Furthermore, Foxconn agreed to raise wages for by up to 25 percent to quell protests about low wages for its workers.

Images 1 & 2 from Greenpeace Switzerland & wicker_man on Flickr (CC)

About Solon Harmony Dolor

A passion for technology and journalism makes this upcoming writer very interested in social media and technology news. Fresh from finishing an English and Journalism degree from the University of the Philippines Diliman, he aims to bring interesting news to our readers .