Foxconn quadruples bonuses for employees who work despite a Covid outbreak

The largest factory iPhone of the world, in the center of Chinaannounced Tuesday to its employees that it would quadruple their bonuses if they remain at the plant, after numerous workers fled the confinement applied at the facility due to an outbreak of Covid-19.

The factory of the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn en Zhengzhou, which employs more than 200,000 people, has been under lockdown since mid-October, following an outbreak of coronavirus. The company ensures that it carries out daily tests on its employees and keeps them in a closed circle.

But workers denounced poor working conditions and inadequate sanitary measures for uncontaminated workers on Chinese social media.

Videos posted online over the weekend show Foxconn employees running away from the companyeven suitcase in hand, to return to their homes on foot, and avoid confinement due to Covid-19.

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant said on its official WeChat profile that starting Monday, employees will receive a daily bonus of 400 yuan ($55) for reporting to work, four times the previous allowance of 100 yuan a day.

Staff will also receive additional bonuses if they attend work 15 days or more in November, up to 15,000 yuan if they register full attendance this month.

Foxconn, which supplies iPhones to the American Applehas promised to do more to help his employees and organize buses to take employees home if they want to leave.

Local governments in the area around the city have asked fleeing workers to register with authorities if they return home to complete a multi-day quarantine upon arrival.

China is the last major economy to maintain a zero Covid strategy, with lockdowns, mass testing and extensive quarantines to eradicate outbreaks.

But new, fast-spreading variants have made it difficult to detect outbreaks early.

The southern semi-autonomous territory of Macau also announced mass testing for its 700,000 inhabitants on Tuesday after detecting several cases, prompting the closure of one of its casinos.

China reported on Tuesday more than 2,000 local infections for the second consecutive day, which led to new restrictions.

The Chinese manufacturing hub of Guangzhou announced partial closures in several districts on Monday, and on Tuesday reported more than 520 new infections.

There have also been outbreaks in northern cities near China’s borders with Russia and North Korea as winter approaches.