More trouble at China’s biggest iPhone factory
On Tuesday, more protests broke out at the factory, with employees allegedly complaining that the terms of their pay had been changed.
In late October, the largest Apple iPhone plant in the world adopted what’s known as a “closed-loop system.” This is because China’s Zhengzhou has been seeing a major COVID outbreak. Through this system, factory workers live and work onsite without leaving in an effort to prevent any spread of the coronavirus. A few weeks ago, the closed-loop system led Foxconn workers complaining of poor living conditions and other issues to flee the factory’s campus on foot. Afterward, the company offered incentives to lure workers back, including pay raises and sanitary workspaces, to keep staff and meet output goals, especially ahead of the upcoming holiday season.
But, on Tuesday, more protests broke out at the factory, with employees allegedly complaining that the terms of their pay had been changed. Many of them had traveled thousands of miles to take jobs at the factory after the worker exodus earlier this month. Foxconn said in a statement that it has fulfilled payments per contract and that any reports of infected workers living and mingling with new recruits on campus were untrue. One source familiar with the situation said Foxconn would remain on track for its production goals this month, despite the unrest. But, another source said they weren’t so sure the protests wouldn’t disrupt production.
Key comments:
“Regarding any violence, the company will continue to communicate with employees and the government to prevent similar incidents from happening again,” Foxconn said in a statement.
“It’s now evident that closed-loop production in Foxconn only helps in preventing COVID from spreading to the city, but does nothing (if not make it even worse) for the workers in the factory,” Aiden Chau of China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group, wrote in an email.
“If Zhengzhou remains at lower capacity the next few weeks and continues to see the unrest build with workers, this would cause clear major iPhone Pro shortages into the all-important Christmas time period, especially in the US,” said Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives in a research note.
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