Workers flee China’s Covid restrictions at Foxconn’s huge iPhone factory
Workers have been staging an exodus this weekend from the world’s largest iPhone factory, amid a coronavirus outbreak at the Foxconn plant in central China.
The huge factory complex in the city of Zhengzhou, which workers say produces Apple’s iPhone 14, is the latest manufacturing centre to be hobbled by President Xi Jinping’s tough zero-Covid policies.
Five workers who spoke to the Financial Times said that the situation at the plant had gradually deteriorated, as food and medical supplies ran low and workers began to be locked in dormitory rooms for quarantine — causing hundreds of employees to flee on foot over the weekend.
But on Sunday, local authorities were scrambling to organise buses to bring those workers home and into centralised quarantine, after scenes of workers tramping down the highway with bags flooded Chinese social media. The FT saw hundreds of workers registering to claim rides home in social media groups.
“I will never go back to Foxconn,” said a worker surnamed Xu, who escaped the plant at 2am on Sunday. “They don’t have humanity there.” He and four friends were on the highway, walking more than 200km to their homes in Xin’an county, Henan, he said.
Authorities in Zhengzhou have partially locked down the city of 10mn after dozens of Covid cases were found. Unlike the rest of the world, China continues to use lockdowns, strict quarantines and mass testing in an attempt to eradicate coronavirus.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li
