Submitted by Harold Saive<\/p>\n
Fearing Covid, workers flee from Foxconn\u2019s vast Chinese iPhone plant Context:<\/b> Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (TWSE: 2317), trading as Hon Hai Technology Group in China and Taiwan<\/u><\/b>, or Foxconn internationally, is a Taiwanese <\/b>multinational electronics contract manufacturer with its headquarters in Tucheng, New Taipei City, Taiwan<\/u><\/b>, established in 1974.<\/i> After enduring days of lock-in at Foxconn\u2019s vast facility in central China with 200,000 other workers, Yuan finally climbed the fences on Saturday night and escaped the complex, joining others fleeing what they feared was a widening Covid outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n He walked through the night, keeping to a northerly route, towards his hometown of Hebi, every step taking him farther away from iPhone maker Foxconn\u2019s Zhengzhou plant, the Taiwan-based group\u2019s<\/u> largest in mainland China.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere were so many people on the road,\u201d Yuan told Reuters on Monday, declining to give his full name because of the matter\u2019s sensitivity.<\/span><\/p>\n Since mid-October, Foxconn has been wrestling with a Covid-19 outbreak at its facility in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province in central China. Workers were locked in to stop the spread of the coronavirus to the outside world. Foxconn has repeatedly refrained from disclosing the caseload.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe were shut in on Oct. 14, and we had to do endless PCR tests, and after about 10 days, we had to wear N95 masks and were given traditional Chinese medicine,\u201d said Yuan.<\/span><\/p>\n Whenever a positive or suspected case was found at a production line, there would be a public broadcast, but work would continue, he told Reuters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople would be called away in the middle of work, and if they don\u2019t show up the next day, that would mean they had been taken away,\u201d Yuan said.<\/span><\/p>\n Around 20,000 workers had been put in quarantine on-site, Yuan had heard, but he could not be sure how many were infected, as management did not publicize that information.<\/span><\/p>\n China typically isolates vast numbers of people considered close or even potential contacts of an infected person.<\/span><\/p>\n The world\u2019s second-largest economy continues to wage war on Covid with disruptive lockdowns, mass testing and quarantines while many other countries have chosen to live with the disease.<\/span><\/p>\n For companies with massive manufacturing campuses like Foxconn, that has meant keeping thousands of workers on-site in so-called \u201cclosed-loop\u201d systems to keep their production lines running.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nPUBLISHED MON, OCT 31 2022
\nhttps:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/10\/
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