Foxconn offers staff $1,400 to leave after protests in China’s iPhone city

Foxconn Technology Group has begun offering a 10,000 yuan ($1,400) incentive to staff in China who choose to leave, an unusual decision announced after violent protests rocked the world’s largest iPhone factory.

Apple Inc.’s main global production partner said in an online notice the sum, to be paid out in two installments, will help smooth the journey home for employees. Many of the 200,000-plus workers at Foxconn’s main plant in Zhengzhou hail from elsewhere in the province or country. A company representative confirmed the initiative but didn’t offer further details.

The incentive, which in general exceeds a month’s wages for Foxconn’s blue-collar staff, is likely to appease employees who on Wednesday staged a rare violent protest that trained a spotlight on the economic and social toll of Xi Jinping’s Covid Zero strategy. Hundreds of workers clashed with security personnel in the early hours as tensions boiled over after almost a month under tough restrictions intended to quash a Covid outbreak.

Workers streamed out of dormitories in the early hours, jostling and pushing past the white-clad guards they vastly outnumbered, Bloomberg News reported. Several white-suited people pummeled a person lying on the ground with sticks in another clip. Onlookers yelled “fight, fight!” as throngs of people forced their way past barricades. At one point, several surrounded an occupied police car and began rocking the vehicle while screaming incoherently.

The protest started overnight over unpaid wages and fears of spreading infection. Several workers were injured and anti-riot police arrived on the scene to restore order, Bloomberg News reported.

The plant had resumed normal operations by Wednesday evening, Foxconn said in a statement. But the protests underscored how Xi’s policy, which relies on swift lockdowns to stamp out the disease wherever it pops up, is increasingly weighing on the economy and throwing swathes of the global supply chain into disarray.

Beijing recently issued new directives ordering officials to minimize disruption and use more targeted Covid controls, but surging outbreaks in major cities have forced local authorities to reach for strict curbs again. Hours after the Zhengzhou violence, the local government announced “mobility controls” over parts of the city through to Nov. 29.