For women who assembled iPhones at a Foxconn plant in southern India, crowded dorms without flushing 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.