Workers at one of China’s largest factories for Foxconn, the company that assembles Apple’s iPhone, left the facility today to escape a lockdown after co-workers tested positive for Covid-19.
Videos on Chinese social media show hundreds of Foxconn employees jumping fences and walking on the side of a road, carrying suitcases and other belongings.
The images illustrate growing popular discontent with China’s ‘zero cases’ strategy for Covid-19. The highly contagious Ómicron variant of the new coronavirus has forced the Chinese authorities to impose increasingly extreme and frequent confinement measures to safeguard the ‘zero cases’ strategy, assumed as a political triumph by the Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping.
Shanghai Disneyland park also said Monday that it will temporarily close, indefinitely, “to comply with pandemic prevention and control measures.”
Foxconn’s factory in Zhengzhou, Henan province, has a capacity of 350,000 workers and is one of the largest factories in China that assembles products for US-based Apple Inc., including the latest iPhone 14 devices.
It is unclear if the workers who left the facility escaped or were allowed to leave.
Chinese media reported this week that the factory has implemented a “closed-loop” system, which prohibits employees from leaving the factory premises.
Foxconn workers quoted by the press complained about the poor quality of the food and the lack of medical attention for those who tested positive. The company has denied rumors that 20,000 people at the factory have been infected with Covid-19.
Cities near Zhengzhou urged Foxconn workers to inform local authorities if they return to their hometowns, to allow proper isolation measures to be prepared.
The Zhengzhou government said Foxconn pledged on Sunday to ensure the safety, legitimate rights and income of those who stayed behind.
Source: TSF
