While Covid-19 related restrictions are gone from most of the world, restrictions remain in China. The Chinese Government has recently reintroduced strict lockdowns in several places with the aim to achieve zero Covid. As a result of such renewed lockdown, workers of the largest iPhone-making plant in the country are fleeing to avoid being locked in.
According to reports, workers of a Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou city are leaving the site to avoid the reintroduced Covid-19 curbs, and are walking hundreds of kilometres for days to reach their homes. The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou in Henan province is the largest plant in China that assembles products for Apple, including the latest iPhone 14.
Zhengzhou is known as iPhone city, due to the Foxconn plant that makes Apple iPhones.
The workers of the plant decided to leave after reports emerged that the Foxconn administration had put a number of workers under quarantine after a Covid-19 outbreak in the plant. The company reported also imposed a ‘closed-loop’ system under which the movements of workers were restricted to their residence and the plant.
Foxconn workers also complained of poor food quality and a lack of medical care for those who tested positive for Covid-19. There were also growing concerns among the workers that the infection could be spreading.
It is notable that Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant is a massive facility which can accommodate 3,50,000 workers. Reportedly, the plant had around 2,00,000 workers when the fresh lockdown was announced. At present, it is not known how many of them are infected, how many have left and how many remain at the site.
The government of the capital Henan province has announced severe lockdown measures, including severe quarantine norms. The city government has imposed a lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, asking residents to stay at home in some areas. The administration also ordered to close all non-essential businesses, and allowed only few whitelisted companies to continue operating.
To escape such strict measures, workers of the Foxconn plant have now left the plant. It is not clear whether the employees have escaped or they were allowed to leave, but in some videos, they were seen scaling fences to leave the site, instead of walking out of the gates.
Workers have broken out of #Apple’s largest assembly site, escaping the Zero #Covid lockdown at Foxconn in #Zhengzhou. After sneaking out, they’re walking to home towns more than 100 kilometres away to beat the Covid app measures designed to control people and stop this. #China pic.twitter.com/NHjOjclAyU
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) October 30, 2022
Several videos showing the Foxconn workers leaving the site have emerged on social media. In the videos, the workers can be seen scaling the boundary walls and fences of the facility, and walking on the road carrying their luggage. BBC’s China correspondent Stephen McDonell, who posted several such videos, said that the workers are walking to their home towns more than 100 km away after sneaking out of the plant site.
So they may think Zero #Covid is going great but here are more of the Foxconn workers who’ve broken out of Apple’s largest assembly site in #Zhengzhou to escape a Zero #Covid lockdown and walk to hometowns some more than 100 kilometres away to beat #China’s phone app restrictions pic.twitter.com/wTzCR2lest
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) October 30, 2022
— Jerry (@jerry16789) October 29, 2022
Residents of nearby villages arranged food and drinks for the Foxconn workers on foot. AP news quoted a volunteer who said that his village prepared supplies for the workers who were passing by the road in the village. He said that workers will have to take that road if they leave the Foxconn facility.
However, after videos of the workers returning home on foot emerged on the Chinese short-video sharing platform Douyin, the local government and Foxconn management arranged buses. Foxconn also issued a statement addressed to its workers, ensuring safety, legitimate rights and income for those willing to stay.
Cites to where the workers are returning have urged them to inform about their return so that appropriate isolation measures could be arranged. The local administrations of several such cities have said that the workers will be sent to mandatory isolation after they arrive from Zhengzhou. These cities also have arranged buses to ferry workers returning from the iPhone plant.
