Finnish com­pa­ny Nokia set up its largest mobile phone assem­bling plant in Tamil Nadu, India, in 2005. Now, the com­pa­ny faces charges of tax avoid­ance. Immi­nent clo­sure of the fac­to­ry and loss of employ­ment looms large for thou­sands of work­ers. The employ­ees’ union, Nokia India Thozhi­lalar Sangam (NITS) made this film doc­u­ment­ing the voic­es of work­ers that have remained mut­ed in a bat­tle between the state and the corporation.They share their expe­ri­ences of work­ing in Nokia; the hap­py times of being ‘con­nect­ed’; of build­ing dreams of becom­ing ‘mid­dle class’; their fears, anx­i­ety and anger of being ‘dis-con­nect­ed’ sud­den­ly by the com­pa­ny that they helped ‘prof­it’ with their hard work; and their resolve to fight for their employment.

 

This makeIT­fair film tells about employ­ment con­di­tions and union­i­sa­tion efforts of elec­tron­ics fac­to­ry work­ers in India. Both Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia and its Tai­wanese sup­pli­er Fox­conn have had a dif­fi­cult 2010 in terms of work­er rela­tions. The film includes footage shot by Fox­conn work­ers dur­ing their strike in Octo­ber 2010 and by makeIT­fair researchers dur­ing their field trip to Chen­nai in March 2011.