Foxconn forcing sick workers to stay on iPhone production lines
Foxconn's bid to catch up on Apple's iPhone 14 Pro orders at its Zhengzhou factory in China is reportedly endangering further outbreaks, by having ill workers stay on the production line.
A Foxconn facility
After months of measures to limit the spread of COVID throughout its workforce, the largest iPhone 14 Pro factory in China lifted most of its restrictions on November 30. However, Foxconn's efforts to catch up after falling behind may be continuing to put the workforce at further risk of infection.
Employees speaking to Rest Of World claim that they have caught the virus after joining the factory. However, instead of being sent off lines after displaying symptoms, some alleged that they were asked to continue working.
One employee alleges that several of their colleagues worked while having a fever. They also had symptoms of being unwell, including having trouble breathing, but spent 11 hours on the line that day, and 10 hours the following day.
That worker's supervisor also apparently told employees to avoid being tested so they could stay on production lines. Foxconn's policies dictate those with positive results are banned from production facilities and dormitories.
Those who were diagnosed as having COVID-19 were also held away from the rest of the workforce in various facilities, including a vocational school and an unfinished apartment complex, report sources say. There were some issues with medical supplies, along with food shortages and dirty toilets.
Some workers also feared for their income if they took sick leave.
During the fall, measures such as closed-loop systems that confined factory workers and higher levels of testing reduced the amount of illness on the production lines. Since the restrictions have lifted, workers now say there's more instances of coughing and fever on lines compared to earlier in the fall.
The symptoms and need to work isn't limited to just line workers. One worker's managers seemed sick as well, using raspy voices to scold employees and having problems walking steadily.
After a prolonged period of employee unrest caused by the need to contain and fight COVID, and at the peak of the holiday shopping period, Foxconn was likely to intend this time to be an opportunity to catch up to iPhone demand.
If unheeded, Foxconn could end up triggering more lockdowns, which could create further worker riots, and slow down Apple's iPhone 14 Pro shipments even more.
Read on AppleInsider
A Foxconn facility
After months of measures to limit the spread of COVID throughout its workforce, the largest iPhone 14 Pro factory in China lifted most of its restrictions on November 30. However, Foxconn's efforts to catch up after falling behind may be continuing to put the workforce at further risk of infection.
Employees speaking to Rest Of World claim that they have caught the virus after joining the factory. However, instead of being sent off lines after displaying symptoms, some alleged that they were asked to continue working.
One employee alleges that several of their colleagues worked while having a fever. They also had symptoms of being unwell, including having trouble breathing, but spent 11 hours on the line that day, and 10 hours the following day.
That worker's supervisor also apparently told employees to avoid being tested so they could stay on production lines. Foxconn's policies dictate those with positive results are banned from production facilities and dormitories.
Those who were diagnosed as having COVID-19 were also held away from the rest of the workforce in various facilities, including a vocational school and an unfinished apartment complex, report sources say. There were some issues with medical supplies, along with food shortages and dirty toilets.
Some workers also feared for their income if they took sick leave.
During the fall, measures such as closed-loop systems that confined factory workers and higher levels of testing reduced the amount of illness on the production lines. Since the restrictions have lifted, workers now say there's more instances of coughing and fever on lines compared to earlier in the fall.
The symptoms and need to work isn't limited to just line workers. One worker's managers seemed sick as well, using raspy voices to scold employees and having problems walking steadily.
After a prolonged period of employee unrest caused by the need to contain and fight COVID, and at the peak of the holiday shopping period, Foxconn was likely to intend this time to be an opportunity to catch up to iPhone demand.
If unheeded, Foxconn could end up triggering more lockdowns, which could create further worker riots, and slow down Apple's iPhone 14 Pro shipments even more.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
In either event brace yourselves for the usual anti-Apple drivel to follow an article like this one. And remember this article when you buy that gadget for your kid made in a factory just down the road from Foxconn. It’s not only Apple you know. It’s everybody who manufactures in China.
Foxconn needs to get their shit in order - behavior like this is sure to leak and is counterproductive.
some people just want to stir it up, probably people paid them to do it to try to crash Apple stock, won’t be the first time
many of these people won’t need to work sick for much longer because my guess is next year, half of these jobs would be gone as Apple moves out of China. Then these people would be begging to work with little sniffles
Some people would believe anything…
where is Apple insiders editorial staff,? Did they get this groups back ground before printing? Have some standards please!
They're based in New York and are a tech news site.
You can even read their standards page: https://restofworld.org/about/ethics-editorial-policies/
however, this idea you can close everything and hide the Virus away is frankly stupid beyond belief.
No named sources, no corroborating sources, completely just made up one sided story
The trouble is both schools of thought are overly simplistic. Zero Tolerance is unsustainable. But the idea that it doesn’t kill too many and those that it does don’t really matter because they’re old or sick anyway, is indefensible. The overwhelming majority understand though that our response must be somewhere in the middle. Vaccines, masks, and caution enough to keep it under control, while we get on with our lives.
The social impact of large numbers of people getting severely ill is a major problem in its own right - no matter the disease. You see all kinds of measures thrown around about what sick days cost "the economy" in general, so even from a purely economic perspective it's worth trying to minimise the number of people who get too sick to work; spread things out as much as possible so that you're not dealing with a sudden shortage that can't be overcome. Lockdowns have a large efficiency cost, but it has to be compared to the efficiency cost of large numbers of people not being able to work at all - which is what China is still struggling with.
Delaying the point where the disease is endemic - where it's everywhere - buys time to get mitigation strategies in place. Vaccines get developed, safety equipment gets manufactured and distributed, the population puts more effort into personal hygiene, etc, etc. You're never going to stop it, you're trying to minimise the harm.
It's a shame to see that economic interests are being treated as more important than the health and well-being of the population, but that's the world we live in.