Foxconn: A troubled company under scrutiny

Foxconn, the electronics manufacturer known for making products for tech titans such as Apple and Dell, has come under increasing fire for its labor practices. Here’s a look at some of the events that have led to independent audits of its work environment.

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Apple chief executive Tim Cook, left, visits the iPhone production line at the newly built Foxconn manufacturing facility at Zhengzhou Technology Park in China's north-central Henan province on March 28, 2012. China's Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who met Cook in Beijing, has told Apple that foreign firms should protect workers, state media said as the tech giant fends off criticism over factory conditions in China.

/ AFP/Getty Images

A demonstrator is grabbed by a policeman during a rally outside an exhibition hall June 1, 2010, in Taipei. Scuffles broke out in Taiwan's capital as protesters, alleging labor abuses by IT giants including Foxconn, tried to enter a venue where President Ma Ying-jeou was opening Asia's biggest technology fair. The activists shouting "Capitalists kill people" and holding placards and pictures of Foxconn chief Terry Gou fought with uniformed police as they tried to deliver a letter to Ma while he launched Computex Taipei.

Patrick Lin / AFP/Getty Images

In a protest outside the Taiwanese parent company of Foxconn on May 28, 2010, a member of a Taiwan labor group places a lily to mourn employees who committed suicide.

Chiang Ying-ying / AP

A picture of Foxconn worker Ma Xiangqian, who fell to his death, is carried by his father, Ma Zishan, outside the Foxconn complex in Shenzhen on May 26, 2010. Ma had worked 286 hours for $1 an hour in the month before his death, the New York Times reported.

Kin Cheung / AP

A Foxconn factory in Taipei County is shown on May 25, 2010.

Sam Yeh / AFP/Getty Images

A victim injured by an explosion at the Foxconn factory arrives at the Sichuan People's Hospital in Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan province on May 20, 2011. The explosion at one of two factories that make Apple's new iPad 2 highlights the risks of a global manufacturing strategy that has cut costs but concentrates production in a few locations.

/ AP

Workers stricken by food poisoning receive treatment at the People's Hospital of Longhua in Shenzhen on Sept. 20, 2006. About 180 workers from electronics company and Apple supplier Foxconn Technology Group were hospitalized after contracting food poisoning at a factory.

China Photos / Getty Images

Local and mainland Chinese university students, dressed as Foxconn workers, hold mock iPads with a skeleton printed on the screens outside an Apple reseller shop in Hong Kong on May 7, 2011. They denounced Apple and its Chinese supplier Foxconn for the alleged dire working conditions of their workers.

Kin Cheung / AP

A cardboard cutout of Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs and paper figures symbolizing Chinese workers are placed by protesters during a protest in Hong Kong on June 8, 2010. Protesters picketed Foxconn's annual general meeting in Hong Kong, accusing both the Apple supplier and computer giant of poor corporate ethics after a recent spate of suicides at Foxconn factories in mainland China.

Vincent Yu / AP

A cyclist rides past an advertising billboard for Apple's iPods in Beijing on July 23, 2009. Apple has called on its suppliers to treat workers with "dignity and respect" after the reported suicide of a factory employee in southern China who had been accused of stealing a new iPhone model. The missing phone was one of a batch of 16 samples produced by Foxconn, which is under license to produce iPhones, at its Shenzhen plant, state media said.

Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images

An employee directs job seekers to queue up outside the Foxconn recruitment center Feb. 22, 2012.

Joe Tan / Reuters

Staff members work on the production line at the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on May 26, 2010.

Kin Cheung / AP

Staff members work on the production line at the Foxconn complex in Shenzhen on May 26, 2010. The head of the giant electronics company, whose main facility in China has been battered by a string of worker suicides, opened the plant's gates to scores of reporters hours after saying that intense media attention could make the situation worse.

Kin Cheung / AP

Company staff members chat at the Foxconn complex in Shenzhen on May 26, 2010.

Kin Cheung / AP

A Chinese worker is seen walking through the dormitory area of a Foxconn factory in an industrial district of Foshan City, southern China's Guangdong province on June 17, 2010. Foreign-run factories in China have been targeted in recent labor unrest as workers gamble on overseas companies responding to their demands and government officials supporting their actions.

STR / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Company staff members stand at the balconies of a residential house at the Foxconn complex in Shenzhen on May 26, 2010.

Kin Cheung / AP

Employees eat their meal on a guardrail of a bridge near a Foxconn recruitment center in Shenzhen on Feb. 22, 2012. Apple's top manufacturer in China, Foxconn Technology, is having no problems luring fresh workers to churn out ever more gadgets, despite the firm's reputation as a tough employer that has put it under a thorough probe into its labor practices.

Joe Tan / Reuters

In February 2010, workers line up for jobs at Foxconn's recruiting center under a banner reading "If you want a job with Foxconn, gather here." A recent spate of suicides at Taiwan-based Foxconn has thrown a spotlight on China's factory conditions and the 200 million migrant workers who are helping to drive its economic rise.

AFP / AFP/Getty Images

Job seekers cross a road as they gather outside a Foxconn recruitment center in Shenzhen on Feb. 22, 2012.

Joe Tan / Reuters

Thousands of Foxconn workers attend a rally to raise morale at the heavily regimented factories inside the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen on Aug.18, 2010. Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn held a morale-boosting, costumed "employee rally" after a string of suicides at its Chinese factories turned a spotlight on working conditions.

Kin Cheung / AP

Foxconn workers dress as women during the rally to raise morale. After a string of suicides at its Chinese factories, Foxconn raised workers' wages and installed safety nets on buildings to catch would-be jumpers. Now the often secretive manufacturer of the iPhone and other electronics is holding rallies for its workers to raise morale at the heavily regimented factories.

Kin Cheung / AP

Foxconn workers shout slogans during the rally.

Kin Cheung / AP

Foxconn employees attend a rally at the Foxconn campus in Shenzhen on Aug. 19, 2010.

Ed Jones / AFP/Getty Images

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