A series of violent protests have been reported at the world’s largest iPhone factory, in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, according to images circulating online.
The videos show hundreds of employees marching, some confronted by staff in personal protective suits and riot police.
Those who have released images of what happened say that the protesters were beaten by the police. Videos also captured the crashes.
The manufacturer Foxconn said it would work with staff and local government to prevent further violence.
In a statement, the company said that some employees had doubts regarding the salary but that the firm would comply with the payments established in los contracts.
The company also called rumors “false” that newly recruited employees were asked to share dormitories with workers who had tested positive for Covid.
Foxconn said the rooms were disinfected and inspected by local authorities before new staff moved into them.
Last month, the increase in covid cases forced a confinement in the factory, from which some employees fled and returned to their homes. The company then recruited new workers with the promise of generous bonuses.
Foxconn ensures that it has disinfected the dormitories of its employees.
They ask for their rights
Live footage showed workers chanting: “Defend our rights!”
others were seen breaking surveillance cameras and windows with sticks.
“They changed the contract so we mightn’t get the subsidy they promised. They quarantine us but they don’t provide us with food,” a Foxconn employee said during the live broadcast.
“If they don’t attend to our needs, we will continue to fight.”
The individual also claimed to have seen a man “severely injured”following a beating allegedly delivered by police.
Some workers say they have not been paid the bonuses they were promised.
While an employee who recently started working at the Zhengzhou plant also told the BBC that workers were protesting that Foxconn had “changed the contract that they had promised”.
He said some new recruits feared contracting Covid from staff who had been there during the previous outbreak.
“Those workers who are protesting want to receive the subsidy and go home,” the staff member said.
The authorities
Wednesday morning there was a large deployment of the police in the plant. Other live videos showed a crowd of armed police officers at the scene.
Another newly hired employee told the BBC that he visited the scene of the protests on Wednesday, where he saw a “man with blood on his head lying on the floor”.
“I did not know the exact reason for the protests but they are mixing us new workers with the old ones who had tested positive [a covid]”, he told the BBC.
In late October, many workers broke out of lockdown at the Zhengzhou plant to return home by bus and truck.
Foxconn, a Taiwanese firm, is the Apple’s main subcontractor and at its plant in Zhengzhou it assembles more iPhones than anywhere else in the world.
In late October, numerous workers fled the plant amid a surge in covid cases and allegations of mistreatment of staff.
The escape was captured on social networks as they went mounted on trucks to their homes.
Since then, the firm has imposed a so-called closed-loop operation on the plant, keeping it isolated from the rest of the city of Zhengzhou due to the covid outbreaks that have occurred there.
Earlier this month, Apple said it was anticipating fewer deliveries of the iPhone 14 model due to production disruption in Zhengzhou.
