Hipad Technology India, a contract manufacturer of smartphone makers such as Oppo and Xiaomi, has asked 200 plus employees to go on leave at its phone plant in Noida, India.
More than a thousand workers of the phone manufacturing unit located in A Block of Sector 63 in Noida, Delhi NCR had gathered outside the plant on Thursday morning to protest against the termination of 200 employees.

The agitation turned violent after protesters hurled stones at the building, damaging its windows, Hindustan Times reported.

Police said nearly 200 contract workers were denied access to the plant and were asked by the management to go on leave for 15 days.

The Hipad Technology India management put up a list of nearly 200 workers and asked them to go on leave. Phone manufacturing or assembling workers are being laid off without any prior information from the unit.

Employees said the production demand for Oppo and Xiaomi had been low after Diwali, one of the important festivals in North India.

Xiaomi is the market leader in the India smartphone market with 27.3 percent share in Q3 2018. Oppo has 6.7 percent share in the Indian smartphone market. The incident indicates job cut in the Indian phone market.

“It seems that they have contracts with three contractors. The company asked them to reduce their workers due to shortage of raw material. However, the vendors didn’t do so. They put up a list of 200 employees asking them to go on leave, which the workers mistook as firing,” Harish Chandra Singh, assistant labour commissioner (ALC), said.

“The contract of the company mentions that services of contractual staff can be terminated at any point of their tenure without any prior notice,” An official at Hipad Technology India said.