IPhone protest

Employees of the largest iPhone factory in China raised a violent rebellion and forced the authorities to compromise

FoxConn factory in Zhengzhou is the largest iPhone production plant in the world, on which 200 thousand people work. At the height of the pre-holiday season profitable for Apple, employees of the enterprise protest due to unpaid salaries and anti-icing measures. About how and why the actions of the dissatisfied have passed, read in the material of Novaya Gazeta Europe.

Protests

On Wednesday, November 23, a video appeared on the Web, on which clashes of thousands of protesters with people in white protective costumes were captured.

The media reported that the protesters are employees of the largest iPhone production factory in the city of Zhenzhou in China, and people in white are security forces.

Some rollers show how the displeased attacks law enforcement officers with metal sticks and even throw barriers into them.

On other frames, brutal beating of protesters of security forces were captured.

It was reported that dissatisfied use fire extinguishers to push the police.

Reasons

Production in Zhengzhou in the PRC belongs to the Taiwanese company Foxconn. In total, there are three organizations in the city, which in total produce half of all the iPhone in the world.

Locals call Zhengzhou “iPhone City”. For employees of enterprises (the number of which is approximately 200 thousand people), the company built housing near factories. According to the media, workers live in extremely high density and must observe strict rules in everyday life.

Last month, the enterprise had to be closed to Lokdown due to the next outbreak of coronavirus. After that, there were reports that workers began to escape from production due to strict living conditions in quarantine.

One of these employees, Yuan, said that the company organized quarantine zones inside the plants, which allegedly contain about 20 thousand people. For some, Koronavirus was not even confirmed-everyone who was in contact with the infected was sent to Lokdown. “Food for tens of thousands of people was simply left outside (quarantine buildings at the factory),” Lee said, another factory worker.

The situation was aggravated by the fact that information about the quantity and conditions of the content of infected employees was kept in strict secret. “People were responded at the height of work, and if they did not appear the next day, this meant that they were taken away,” Yuan said.

As a result of the dismissal of thousands of Foxconn workers, I was faced with difficulties in executing orders for the supply of iPhone 14.

The company urgently posted ads on hiring, in which it promised new employees high salaries. It was about earnings of 25 thousand yuan (more than 200 thousand rubles at the current rate) for two months of work. In mid -November, it was announced that Foxconn hired 100 thousand new workers.

“The quota is finally completed. And our process of hiring is now temporarily closed, ”the head of the company at Zhengzhou Jan Han told the Yicai Chinese publication.

But after arriving at the factory, new employees learned that the organization changed the terms of contracts and payments.

“Foxconn published very tempting hiring proposals, and workers came from all over the country, only to understand what fools had made of them,” one of the workers, Lee Sanshan, in an interview with The Guardian.

According to other information, the new employees began to complain that they were not fed and settled in one hostel with infected coronavirus.

After that, protests began on the territory of production.

The company's reaction

On November 23, Foxconn published a press release in which she denied all the accusations. The organization said that all payment obligations would be fulfilled, and also called false information that new workers live along with infected coronavirus. “As for any violence, the company will continue to communicate with employees and the government in order to prevent the repetition of such incidents,” the report said.

However, today the company published a statement in which she apologized to employees for a “technical error”.

“Our team studied this issue and found a technical error that occurred during the registration process <...> we apologize for the error in the computer system and guarantee that the actual wage corresponds to the agreed and official posting posters,” FoxConn said.

CNN writes that the company literally asked the protesters to quit money. “In the message seen by CNN, Foxconn called on workers to return to their dormitories on the territory of the campus. She also promised to pay them eight thousand yuan if they agree to leave FoxConn, and two thousand Yuan after they sit on buses to completely leave the territory, ”the channel said.

Some employees said they began to receive relevant payments.

One of the employees told BBC that after that the protests were over, and everyone began to return to work.